The city is looking to re-examine the way they take out the trash.
The City of Thunder Bay is in the process of developing a 20-year solid waste management strategy to look at how they manage waste in the city.
Solid waste diversion and recycling coordinator Jason Sherband said they’ll look at how their current programs are doing, how they can be enhanced and any opportunities for new programs.
“It’s looking at everything and how we do business and looking for efficiencies,” said Sherband. “It could involve spending more money on things in the future. It could involve delivering different programs or maybe delivering them differently.”
“It’s really an exercise to look at how we’re doing business.”
That could consist of the expansion of the recycling program to include more than just No. 1 and 2 plastics.
The planning process will also look at the frequency of trash collection and the possibility of bag tags.
Everything is still in the early stages and Sherband said the public will have plenty of chances to voice their thoughts on the plan, starting with a public meeting on June 4 at the Italian Cultural Centre.
“(We want to) get people out to tell us what they want; how can we do things better? What do you want to see,” Sherband said.
The city has often heard from the public they want to be able to recycle more items in the blue bag program and have also requested an organics recycling program.
“We do a good job with the resources we’ve got but we want to take it a step further and look at how can we make things more efficient,” he said.
This plan would look at what programs are feasible and how they could be structured.
Sherband said a draft plan is expected to be presented to council this fall with the hopes a final approved plan will be ready in the first quarter of 2014.
