City council approved adding October to the list of months with weekly garbage collection during budget deliberations last week.

The motion, which was put forward by Coun. Dawn Luhning, was passed by a vote of 6-1 with Coun. Kim Robinson opposed.

“I feel like this is, again, something that the citizens see and feel every day. It's important to them and I hear it over and over again every year about it being deeper into the fall,” Luhning said.

Currently, garbage collection is done on a bi-weekly basis but increases to weekly collection from June to September. October will now be included in the weekly collection.

Collection rates will be increased slightly from $9.77 per month to $9.99 in order to fund the extra month of weekly pick-up.

“The residential collection is not a profit center. That is a complete cost recovery center. There is no money made off that program for our citizens. It is strictly the cost to provide the service,” explained Director of Public Works and Utilities Darrin Stephanson.

A report was given to the city council this past October which showed that, on average, 43.6 kilograms of waste is collected in September, but that number jumps to 56.1 kilograms in October. Stephanson noted that the capacity for a waste bin is about 65 kilograms or more.

However, during the summer months, the city sees the disposal of improper materials increase by about 70 percent.

“While summer months do add 700,000 or so kilograms of yard waste to our residential stream, which is one of the biggest concerns for that weekly collection, at the same time, there's 930,000 kilograms of recycling and diverted material that are put into those bins as well,” Stephanson said.

Statistics from 2020 showed that 1.3 million kilograms of recyclable material was collected, with 8.2 million kilograms of waste sent to the landfill.

About 1 million kilograms of recyclable material was sent to the landfill with 900,000 kilograms of other divertible materials such as electronics, glass, metal, and clothing were sent to the landfill.

“Today's economy certainly shifted from that era of preservation and reuse to one of disposability: single-use items, planned obsolescence of items, cheap materials, throwaway packaging, and certainly the rise of fast fashion have all contributed to the waste streams that are going into our waste bins,” Stephanson said.

The city has tried alternative measures over the past year to try and avoid adding another month of weekly collection. This included two free yard waste days at the landfill this fall with a total of 476 customers taking advantage of the service.

Meanwhile, fees were waived this past October for residents wanting a second waste bin. Only four requests were received and one bin was returned within two weeks.

Curbside recycling will continue to be offered bi-weekly throughout the rest of this year.