The Town of Diamond Valley is making changes to their garbage collection.
The Town is moving to a bi-weekly garbage collection on May 1, with the hopes of changing the community culture around waste.
Initially, the Towns of Black Diamond and Turner Valley had wanted to move to a bi-weekly garbage collection back in 2019, but other priorities got in the way.
"In 2020, it was supposed to go bi-weekly," explained the Diamond Valley Manager of Civic Operations, Craig Beaton.
But, Beaton says that once the amalgamation negotiations began and became approved, the idea of a bi-weekly garbage collection fell to the wayside.
"Sort of lost track of that waste service schedule. So, it just got postponed due to the overwhelming workload of the amalgamation. We never did carry through with that bi-weekly service."Â
What prompted them to make the change to the schedule now?
The Provincial government is implementing the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program on April 1, which will shift the physical and financial burden of collecting, sorting, processing, and recycling waste to the waste producer and away from taxpayers and local governments.
"There will be a bit of cost saving to the municipality in that we no longer have to provide service from tax dollars to recycling."
Beaton says the Town does an audit of their waste carts and their recycling bins, to make sure items are going to the correct location, but they have been finding that roughly two-thirds of the items in the garbage bin should have been diverted to one of the other two bins.
Because of that, the Town wants to help change the culture around the three streams of waste service, and try to encourage better usage of the recycling and organic bins.
"So, it's a little bit of a catch-up game of trying to get back to where we originally intended with the bi-weekly service, and then it's also to shift the culture a little bit and try to encourage the full usage of the three streams of service," Beaton says.
Weekly pickup for the Organics bins will begin on April 1, whereas the Recycling bins are collected weekly, year-round.
The Town of Okotoks is also switching to a bi-weekly garbage collection, but unlike the Town of Okotoks, Diamond Valley is already using the 240 L garbage bins that Okotoks is switching to, so Diamond Valley isn't having to swap out bins like Okotoks is doing.
Beaton says the Town has heard some concerns from the public about the change in the garbage collection schedule, such as the concerns over not having enough room in the garbage bin to last for two weeks.
For those who are having trouble keeping their garbage low enough for the bi-weekly collection, the Town does allow residents to apply for an additional waste cart, but the residents will have to pay for the additional bin and collection.
The Town of Diamond Valley is still in the process of figuring out their collection schedule, but the garbage collection should stay on the same day.
To learn more about garbage collection in Diamond Valley, click here.