Please note: According to the District website, new bag limits will be effective November 6. Pick-up dates will vary according to your collection schedule. You can find a link to more District waste collection information below.
Huntsville Councillor Brian Thompson reminded council at its September meeting that a reduction in garbage collection—from three to two bags in rural areas and from two to one bag in urban areas—begins November 1.
He said an expansion of the green bin service is also planned, especially in the urban core to encourage waste diversion. ” As I’m sure we’re all aware the majority of the weight in any of our garbage bags is our organics and stuff like that.”
Thompson reminded council that the District only has one landfill site and it’s filling up faster than anticipated. “At the rate we’re going right now… there’d have to be a new one by 2036 and that is way ahead of schedule,” said Thompson. “And the cost of a new landfill site… is in the tens of millions of dollars and then you have to find a location, go through all the EA (Environmental Assessment) processes. It’s not something you just go out and ‘well we have an empty field here, we’ll put it here for the time being, that kind of thing.'”
Huntsville Mayor Karin Terziano said the message to the community is that the limit is going down by one bag to save landfill space and to encourage the community to sort better, recycle, and compost organics where possible.
“I think we’re going to hear a lot from the community, I know I already have but that is something that needs to be done,” she said.
More information about the District’s waste collection and other initiatives can be found, here.
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How many of us can remember that most rural properties had a little garbage tip of their own? One of my jobs was to carry refuse out and dump it over a precipice behind our house. In town, people took it to the swamp where the beer store once was. It would get set alight by times, and smoking, burning debris would get blown out to King William or Chaffey Street. If the wind was right, you would smell it up town.
All gallon cans from purchases were kept and cleaned up. Our sugar bush hung with an assortment of, and generally about 100, of such coloured buckets.
Vegetable peelings and such went to animals or back to the land, and paper found its way into the soil as ashes from the cook stove.
But I drive along the road now and am amazed at the volume of stuff in garbage and recycle bins. Quite often we won’t have anything to pick up ’til the second week and sometimes the third. Bean cans are always predominant, since I like canned beans; as one of the food groups.
It is curious that urban families will be restricted to a single bag, while rural abodes will be allowed two. Could it be that we don’t want to inconvenience our summer folk at their cottages since most of them are in that rural setting. Maybe council could enlighten us as to why the difference.
Anna LIse-Kear: on the lighter side. Your reference to Ottawa being in Ontario. You have to remember who you are dealing with. Ford’s map reading may be similar to Donald Trump’s. When the Kansas City Chiefs won the Superbowl, the nerd congratulated the great state of Kansas!
Kansas City is in Missouri.
How could he have known?
Maybe Doug thinks Ottawa is a bank and not a province.
Who can tell with Doug and his minions.
Hi Sandi, you don’t have to sort your recyclables anymore. You can find more information here: https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/single-stream-recycling-now-in-effect-in-muskoka-do-you-know-what-you-can-recycle/
Ok. How are you going to distinguish bags in apartments and condos in the city? Oops.
You’re talking about restricting bags, but little about actual recycling how to’s, what is included and what is not. I haven’t seen anything in print, no recycling guide. That would be great. Think about it.
This is in fact a regressive tax – it specifically penalizes large families, multi-family households, family celebrations – all the things we should in fact be supporting!
And the idea expressed in the council meeting that I will now choose my furniture, electronics etc. based on how much packaging is used is just wild! Who comes up with these daft notions?
Is this the start of garbage pick up elimination. If we have to take 1 bag to the dump we might as well take two
You are going to have a big issue.
So does the reduction in service come with a reduction in taxes? That would only be fair.
Or is this just another money grab to pay for the 27%!!! increase in salaries at the District?
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/district-council-defeats-attempt-to-reduce-proposed-increase-to-councillor-pay/
Reduce services while increasing taxes and District salaries.
Typical.
Perhaps an expansion of recyclable could be in the cards for the new District Council? Imagine being a leading community in waste management, instead we seem to be stuck in the 1990’s.
What about bulky items?
To Chas Clark: You make a good point. Why are urban dwellers allowed 1 bag but rural are allowed 2 bags? Also, be careful about using larger bags (from experience). We do use the contractor bags but they aren’t full otherwise one full contractor bags equals 2 bags (from experience). We use contractor bags because they are very strong. We simply crush down our garbage, then tie it. We rarely have filled it to the top. Now, we can’t.
I’m glad that expansion of green bin service is forthcoming. But, why only in the urban core? Surely rural residents will have green bin collection! It’s amazing how much and how heavy our green bin is every week.
The new bag limits as from November 1 reduces garbage bag collection from 3 to 2 bags in rural areas and from 2 to 1 in urban areas to conserve landfill space. I am struggling to understand any of the logic in this action. Firstly, why is there a difference in bag numbers between urban and rural areas as say, a family of 2 adults and 2 children will produce the same amount of garbage regardless of their location.
Secondly, during summer, the population of Huntsville increases from around 20,000 to between 60 t0 80,000 I believe. So why are the permanent residents penalized during winter as they will produce the same amount of garbage as they do in summer whilst the garbage from the summer residents disappears.
I suggest that permanent residents buy larger garbage bags. You need to ensure that they are below 50 lbs in weight, or they will not be picked up.
Of course illegal dumping will be a much bigger problem if the District won’t take it.
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/is-huntsvilles-500-fine-for-illegal-dumping-too-little-councillor-thompson/
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/do-you-know-who-dumped-this-garbage-on-shay-road/
Carol, I just looked on the website. It mentions the change in number of bags but, it states that this is happening November 7 not November 1 as this Doppler article states. Yes, some people will be surprised and unhappy when it kicks in, as you say.
This change has not yet been updated in the Muskoka Waste app and is not noted in any upcoming event notifications. That should have been updated once it was confirmed. I haven’t seen anything sent out via Twitter or Facebook recently. Communication of this change needs to be more of a priority – who is responsible for that? People are going to be surprised and unhappy when it kicks in.