I can say with some certainty that one of the most received complaints/requests over my time as both local and regional councillor for Milton has been about blue box waste.
Most recently Halton Region has introduced the 22L larger sized blue box containers for residents to be able to hold more recycled material that’s collected on a weekly basis.
This, along with other waste management diversion programs, has helped Halton Region be a provincial leader in waste diversion from the landfill at over 64%. Its an incredible accomplishment that we all should be very proud of. In turn these programs have extended the life of the landfill from what was originally projected to be 2012 – now projected to be 2042 and beyond. This has saved Halton taxpayers roughly $15 million in potential costs of a new landfill site, countless studies and possible property acquisitions.
Sadly there are windy days and things don’t always go as planned. Blue boxes can tip over in the wind and an unintended result will be blue box waste blowing around.
Recently Halton Region has been reviewing a number of their policies and procedures to come up with more solutions for Milton and Halton residents.
Just this past meeting of Halton Region council, we approved some of these changes – with more to come – including the use of recycling bags. A number of options were looked at including bins with lids that some other regions used and while there was a decrease in some blue box waste, other issues had arose such as non recycling material being collected in those bins, and on extremely windy days these taller bins with lids can also tip over.
We’ve worked out a solution that starting in April of 2018 – more details to come – Halton residents will now be able to use recycling bags to collect and store their recycling materials for collection. This we feel will cut down on blue box waste, especially on windy days going forward.
There will be more details to come as we get closer to the date, so stay tuned to this website and www.halton.ca for more details.