Engineering and Public Works committee heard that lakeside waste collection hours will increase by 66 per cent from last year.
The new routes for the 2025 season are included in green below:
Renee Recoskie, Director of Waste Management and Environmental Services for the District, told committee that while adjustments can be made to the routes, “what I will say for next year, because of the drastic increase in the number of hours overall, 66 per cent, we have achieved a maximum that we can service with those number of routes. So to add any additional hours would require a full new route, which would have far more monetary impact than what we’ve presented this year,” she said, referring to the estimated $170,000 it costs to run the program.
The service began as a pilot to transition away from garbage bins so that island and water-access community members would not have to travel significant distances with waste in their boats or motor vehicles.
“Now that this is becoming more of a core service and given the expansion, it’s always helpful to also reach out to the people who aren’t using it to try and learn why,” noted District Chair Jeff Lehman.
Councillors Bob Lacroix and Peter Cooper questioned why there isn’t more uptake for the program in certain areas.
Staff said usage will be monitored and attempts to engage those not using the service will be made. Recoskie said now that the service is transitioning to one of District’s standard services, lakeside users will have the ability to follow their route schedule on the District waste app, similar to curbside waste collection users. “That wasn’t available to our lakeside users before and that’ll offer us a greater way to engage with them as well. So we did want to note that as this service is evolving, we’re finding ways to increase customer service and having it more accessible for folks that use that service.”
The 2025 summer Lakeside Waste Collection program will typically run from May 18 to October 12.
You can find the report from staff HERE.
Related
Council considers changes to Lakeside Waste Collection for upcoming season
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So they are increasing the summer waste collection by 66% and then they cut the year round residents collection by from 2 to one bag to save waste? Go figure!