On June 23, 2010, City Council asked the Public Service to prepare a comprehensive waste management plan for the entire city to increase our waste diversion rate to 50% or more by reducing household garbage and significantly increasing household recycling.

If you reside in a house, duplex, or multiplex with seven units or less, your garbage and recycling collection will change to a new, modernized and improved collection service that will help keep more garbage out of our landfill and give you more opportunities to recycle.

• A new garbage cart (holds about three regular-size garbage bags).
• A new recycling cart (holds about four regular-size blue boxes).
• Automated collection of the new garbage and recycling carts every week of the year, including weeks with statutory holidays.
• Yard waste collection every two weeks from April to November, depending on the weather.
• A new, easy to remember set weekday collection schedule, replacing the current five-day collection cycle.

• Your new collection day will be a set weekday (e.g. every Tuesday).
• A calendar highlighting your collection days will be included with your new carts.
• There is no collection on Remembrance Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. If these holidays fall on a weekday, your collection day could be one day later, and normal collection will resume the following week.
• This is what will happen, in 2012, for example, when Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fall on a Tuesday:
  • Monday’s collection Monday
  • Tuesday’s collection Wednesday
  • Wednesday’s collection Thursday
  • Thursday’s collection Friday
  • Friday’s collection Saturday

Most multi-family dwellings with eight or more units will not see a change in their collection service. However, there could be a change in collection containers for some multi-family dwellings.

• Yes. The charge for your basic garbage and recycling services is 14 cents per day.
• If you have a water account with us, we will start adding the daily charge to your quarterly utility bill on October 1, 2012.
• If you do not have City water and sewer service, we will send you quarterly utility bills after October 1, 2012.

The cost of providing garbage and recycling services will still be among the lowest in the country. As an innovative comprehensive city-wide waste diversion program, it will provide citizens with improved services, recycling and waste reduction opportunities, access to new environmental programs like curbside yard waste collection, a curbside kitchen organic collection trial, and Community Resource Recovery Centres.

• No. The services will be uniform and fair city-wide.
• Residents are encouraged to utilize all of the new and improved services and to play a role in increasing the city’s waste diversion to 50% or more.

• If the water bill is in your name, you will be responsible for the quarterly fee for garbage service.
• If the water bill is in the property owner’s name, the garbage collection fee may be added to your monthly rent.
• The carts belong to the property and not the resident.  If you move, you must leave the carts behind.

As the property owner, you will be responsible for:

• ensuring the carts are available for your tenants, and
• the monthly fee if the water bill is in your name.

Yes. The fee applies to all residential properties with seven units or less.

• Recycling carts will be delivered in June 2012 to residents in the northwest area that already have garbage carts and currently receive automated garbage collection service.
• Recycling and garbage carts will be delivered to residents in the AutoBin area from June 25, 2012 to July 27, 2012.
• Recycling and garbage carts will be delivered to remaining areas of the city by the end of September 2012, starting in North Kildonan and working clockwise, ending in Charleswood.

Yes. Three months after your new collection begins, you can upgrade your garbage collection service for an annual fee:

Yes. You can request additional or larger recycling carts for a one-time rental fee.

No. Only automated recycling carts will be emptied as part of your recycling collection service.

• You can use your old blue boxes for your new yard waste collection service.
• If you have no use for them, we will collect and recycle them.

• As with garbage containers and blue boxes today, property owners will be responsible for:
  • keeping the carts clean and in good repair,
  • storing the carts in a safe place,
  • removing the carts from the street or lane as soon as possible after collection, and
  • replacing the carts if stolen or damaged.
• To report stolen or damaged carts, please call 311.

Yes.

Starting October 1, 2012, for an additional fee, we will pick up items that don’t fit in your garbage cart – extra garbage bags, large items, and appliances with ozone-depleting substances.

The fee is $5.00 for up to three standard-size garbage bags per pickup.

Starting October 1, 2012:

• The fee is $5.00 per item, and we will collect up to ten large items per pickup.

Examples of large items are:

• furniture, mattresses
• stoves, dishwashers, washing machines

• Yes. The fee is $20.00 per item. The service includes professional removal of hazardous materials such as chlorofluorocarbons.

Examples of appliances with ozone-depleting substances are:

• refrigerators, freezers
• air conditioners

• Yes.  This service will continue to be funded as part of the garbage collection service.
• You can report abandoned waste by contacting the 311 Centre by phone or email and the abandoned waste will be collected.

No. In fact we expect a decrease in abandoned waste due to:

• removal of the shared AutoBin system,
• a more user-friendly collection program for large items and fee structure, and
• the opportunity for residents to take reusable items to a Community Resource Recovery Centre.

Yes. All of the community shared garbage bins (Autobins) will be permanently removed.

• The removal of AutoBins is predicted to reduce abandoned waste and illegal dumping.
• Of the 20,000 bulky and abandoned waste collections city-wide in 2010, 12,000 were in the AutoBin area alone.
• The AutoBin area represents about 24,000 out of Winnipeg’s 187,000 households.

• It will begin with your new collection – August 1, 2012 for the AutoBin area and October 1, 2012 for all other single-family homes.
• Yard waste will be collected once every two weeks from April to November, on the same day as your garbage and recycling collection.

You can put your yard waste in these containers:

• Any reusable container without a lid (e.g., plastic tubs, old blue boxes, metal or plastic garbage cans
• Cardboard boxes.
• Compostable paper yard waste bags. You can buy them at many stores.

We will not collect yard waste in plastic bags. Plastic bags do not break down and will ruin the finished compost.

• The yard waste will be composted at the Brady Road Landfill site.
• Initially we will use the finished compost as a landfill cover material and offer it to other City departments for soil amendment needs.
• Once the quality and quantity of the compost material has been proven, it could be marketed for sale.

No. The depots will close since unlimited residential yard waste will be collected curbside once every two weeks from spring to fall. There will no longer be a need for the seasonal depots.

Yes, because the curbside yard waste collection program will end in November each year.

We need to measure the interest and participation so that we can determine the best collection methods and the most efficient and economical composting facilities to handle the material.

Since there will already be significant change taking place for garbage and recycling collection services in 2012 and 2013, we will start the trial once the transition to the collection services has stabilized, likely as early as 2014.

Yes. The trial area hasn’t been determined yet, but we welcome interest from residents.

• The first Centre at Brady Road Landfill will be operating in 2013.
• The second Centre will be in the north area of the city and will be operating in 2014.  The site has not yet been determined.
• The remaining two Centres (east area and west area) will be operating as early as 2015 and 2016.

There will be a $5.00 charge per visit if you are bringing items that require landfill disposal (e.g., drywall, shingles, renovation material, furniture, mattresses).

• No.  The intent of the Centres is resource recovery and not a landfill or a landfill transfer station.
• Residents will be encouraged to drop off material that could be resold, reused or recycled.

A User Guide will be included with each cart.