Muskoka residents are failing the test when it comes to waste diversion.
During this week’s District of Muskoka engineering and public works committee meeting councillors heard the results of the 2024 curbside waste audit.
“Disappointing. That’s all I can say,” said Coun. Brenda Rhodes, who attended one of the audits in person. “It was mind-blowing. We opened one garbage bag and inside we found that someone had collected all of their organics and put them into an organic bag, and then put that organics bag into the garbage bag.”
According to district staff, more than half of the items put out as garbage technically are not garbage at all. Staff say 43% of waste put out for the landfill should actually be included in the organics collection, 7% is recycling and 3% are classified as “other”.
Levels of misplaced waste are highest in Muskoka Lakes Township (55 %) and lowest in Huntsville (45%).
On the flip side of the coin, nearly 30% of materials set out in blue boxes should have been set out as garbage or organics.
Muskoka Lakes had a 20% contamination rate for their recycling, ranking them highest for recycling compliance in the district. Residents of Gravenhurst had the highest contamination rate at 46%. Contamination rate for garbage and recycling refers to how much material is in the stream that doesn’t belong. The goal is to get the contamination rate as close to 0% as possible.
Staff also pointed out that of those eligible for green bin collection, only some 40% take part.
Rhodes said Muskoka’s poor diversion rate is one of the reasons she’s in favour of measures like clear garbage bags, which will become mandatory next year.
“It is absolutely imperative that we take these measures because we’re not getting it,” she said.
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I wonder if our waste/recycling would be better if each municipality looked after the waste/recycling generated in the municipality? Was it better before the district took over? Also a lot of the issues could be resolved if more things had a deposit placed on them. The beer store does a darn good job of reusing bottles because of the deposit. I remember when pop companies started using cans for their product. More convenient for the companies but it created another thing to go in the garbage. We need our upper tier governments to make reusable and returnable containers and packaging mandatory. Make companies like coca-cola and heinz look after the issue.
There are many logistical issues to this plan
1- we are seasonal residents
This means we are not always in the area on our garbage day
Thus, leaving out a green bin for 2-3 days is asking for trouble
Consequently, that last bit of kitchen scraps becomes garbage
Have you considered this issue?
2- how on earth do you think 2 opaque plastic bags will cut it if one is dealing with adult incontinence?
When we are at our property for a span of time, we do our very best to sort everything
But
Issue 3- the people who use our place all live in different cities each with different do’s and don’t s regarding composting and recycling, making all of this confusing
Do you really plan to pay the garbage men for the extra time it is going to take them to sort through the detritus of everyone’s lives in Muskoka?
We have to ask ourselves – am I one of the laggards who are not pulling their weight?
Many folks are trying diligently to do the correct think – it is not complicated or difficult.
When we see that almost one half of the garbage going to land fill is actually compostable green bin organics – that says we are just too lazy to bother sorting our kitchen wastes out of the land fill garbage bag.
It is not rocket science to understand the well known fact that when this organic material is wrongly buried in a land fill and it decomposes, it produces the greenhouse gas methane – more damaging than even the CO2 from our fossil fuel burning. When it decomposes instead exposed to air- as when the District makes the topsoil from it, it does not produce methane.
That’s why it is so important to segregate out our organic kitchen geenbin wastes so the Distict can compost it separately into topsoil. Simple – right?
We should also not let the commercial fast food chains off the criticism hook either. ALL their bin wastes go to landfill – NO food waste organics sorting here. Their recycle/waste segregated bins are not segregated – all to landfill.
Sooo folks, when our last and only landfill dumpsite at Rosewarne in Bracebridge is filled up in an estimated 10 short years, don’t scream when your costs go up to truck your garbage to some other far away landfill dump.
Come on folks – lets shape up. We can do better than this.
Robert Barnes
P.Eng.
What we need is a system where we put everything in one bag and have it taken to a sorting facility. Pay people a better than average wage to do this. Is our recycling not already sorted after it is collected? We would have 100 percent diversion.