THUNDER BAY -- The City of Thunder Bay's isn't projecting its bank balance to grow from the sale of bag tags to homeowners wishing to place a third garbage container at curbside.
Effective this week, the limit for "free" garbage pickup is two containers. Residents can leave an extra container at the curb if they attach a tag to it, at a cost of two dollars.
The city is selling the tags in books of five.
Jason Sherband, the manager of solid waste and recycling services, says the cost of administering the tag system should be roughly the same as the revenue that it generates.
"We're estimating at this point that it will probably be revenue-neutral. What we've committed to city council is to come back in about a year so that we can actually get some true numbers for what those sales will be."
Sherband noted, however, that the reduced garbage limit is not designed to improve the city's cash flow but rather to encourage the diversion of material that would otherwise go to the landfill site.
"We're not out there promoting the sale of tags," he said, adding that the end goal is to get residents to rethink their waste generation habits.
Nonetheless, Sherband said, the tag system is in place for people who need it.
With the tags just recently having gone on sale, he said "there has been some uptake, which we fully expected."
He feels some of Thunder Bay's more than 37,000 single-family households will purchase a book of tags at the outset just as a precaution. "They may take six months to use that sheet of tags, but they just want to make sure that they've got them in hand."
Sherband said that while some households have already made the adjustment to two containers, others have not as yet but will do so later.
He expects it will be a few months into the program before the city can get a true reading of the uptake for bag tags.
