There are still 16 years left in the expected lifespan of the Merrick Landfill, but future options will be investigated during this term of council.
That information came up during a discussion on waste diversion at Tuesday night’s committee meeting.
“We have a budget line item already of $500,000 to look at what the future of our Merrick Landfill site will be,” says Karin Pratte, Senior Environment & Facilities Engineer. “That is just a drop in the bucket in terms of what we’re looking at long-term for costs. That will be occurring within the next three years in this council’s term that we will have the results of that consulting work.”
She says it can take 10 to 15 years to get approvals to even expand on an existing landfill site.
Pratte also says waste diversion is critical to extending the life of the landfill. Strategies being looked into additional rebate programs, a year-round one-stop shop for all types of waste diversion, and more.
“We are investigating the opportunity to potentially ban blue box materials in our waste stream which would ensure that residents are using the blue box stream as opposed to using the waste stream for those materials,” Pratte says. “In order to enforce a ban on our blue box recyclables we would be looking at implementing a clear bag program.”
She says a waste audit done last year saw about 60 per cent divertable materials within the bags of trash going to the landfill.
Another audit is currently underway, and Pratte says while the results aren’t available yet, it appears to be around a similar percentage.
Any waste diversion initiatives would be done at the discretion of council and would require approval before moving forward.
