The City of Thompson's public works and infrastructure committee will discuss tomorrow how to restore recycling pickup Thompson-wide, including to a number of multiple family premises high-density housing complexes, where tenants who potentially generate far more recycling than many single detached homeowners, have been without recycling pickup since March 20.
The high-density multi-family housing complexes in the city - including 10 Yale, owned by Allied Rentals, but numerous other locations, especially but not exclusively in Eastwood - had blue box recycling pickup for individual tenants until March 20. Once the Thompson Recycling Centre switched from manual to automated recycling pickup April 12, they were left out in the cold.
Residents at 10 Yale and elsewhere had already lost their individual unit garbage pickup last November when the city switched to automated waste pickup with their new carts. Allied Rentals brought in communal dumpsters and passed at least some of the cost of providing those dumpsters directly though to tenants in the form of rental increases, as soon as they were legally permitted to do so.
Deputy mayor Harold Smith said March 12 that under the city's amended consolidated stolid waste bylaw, 10 Yale and other multiple family premises complexes are considered commercial residential locations that the city does not have to now provide garbage pickup for.
In terms of recycling, Smith pointed out there are now three communal recycling depots around the city, including one in Eastwood at Cliff Park, as well as at the centre itself on Severn Crescent and in the parking lot of the recreation centre off Thompson Drive North, where 10 Yale residents can take their recycling themselves and drop it off after March 20. Cliff Park had no recycling bin April 30 and a sign saying the depot was "closed."
It is possible 10 Yale, or other high-density housing areas, may eventually be the site of additional recycling depots, but there were no immediate plans to expand beyond the current three, Smith said March 12.
Now, however, the City of Thompson appears to be changing its tune a bit. On March 23, Valdine Flaming, the city's communications co-ordinator, said in an e-mail: "The Thompson Recycling Centre working group met yesterday (a group formed to lead the transition the centre will see with investment and transition to automated collection carts).They're working on options to extend recycling to the units to be affected by the discontinuation of curb side recycling pickup at 10 Yale, and will bring forward these extended recycling options for rental properties Thompson-wide."
That working group is led by Craig Finlay, manager of assets and infrastructure for the City of Thompson, and also includes Melissa Branconnier and Erin Wilcox, co-chairs of the board of directors of the Thompson Recycling Centre; Billie Joe Thompson, manager of the recycling centre; Smith, and Coun. Erin Stewart; city manager Randy Patrick and Gary Ceppetelli, the city's director of planning and community development, Joyce Kopp, purchasing agent for the city; Ken Ament, Mark McClelland; and Gord Wakeling, general manager and chief executive officer of the Communities Economic Development Fund (CEDF).
While the recycling centre is run by an arms-length board of directors, their payroll and certain other administrative functions are processed by the City of Thompson on their behalf, even though they are not city employees and oversight is limited, yet they both receive their major sources of funding annually from the city. In fact, the City of Thompson is exercising more oversight than ever or the recycling operation.
Smith, however, said earlier last month, it is not the working group, but ultimately the public works and infrastructure committee, which must approve any solution to restoring recycling pickup to multiple family premises high-density housing complexes.
The two-member public works and infrastructure committee is chaired by Coun. Oswald Sawh, while
Coun. Charlene Lafreniere is the other council member on the committee.
