At a special virtual meeting of Carleton Place Council, held on Tuesday May 5, recently retired director of public works Dave Young presented options for a new recycling collection contract.  The existing agreement expires next month, and Young took the opportunity earlier this year to review different options.  Due to the extremely soft market for recycled material, Carleton Place and other municipalities are facing steep price increases.  Young worked on a proposal request in partnership with Mississippi Mills and Montague and those two municipalities selected Emterra Environmental as their contractor earlier this spring.

The recommended proposal would see all three jurisdictions opt for a dual-stream system which would collect paper and cardboard separately from plastics and metals on an alternating weekly basis.  This, according to Young would reduce contamination and increase the market value of the materials.  Emterra has recently completed upgrades to its sorting and processing facility in Renfrew and has operations in four provinces as well as the state of Michigan and has been in the recycling business since 1976.

Households will be supplied with 2 different bins and the plan would see the new system phased in beginning next month.  Young reported that a comprehensive public education program will be developed with expectations it may take a few months to get everyone on board.  The terms of the contract have some flexibility built in, in recognition of the province’s plan to require goods’ producers to be responsible for the costs of recycling.  That legislation is currently in the works with plans to roll out in 2023.

Council approved going with Emterra and a dual stream system by unanimous vote.  Even with the costs advantages of this move and the mid-year start, Carleton Place will see an increase of almost $142K over last year’s total.  When the dual system is launched there will only be 1 municipality left in Lanark County offering single-stream collection.

Article by Brian Turner