“Don’t mess with people’s garbage.” 

Coun. Heather Eby said she learned many things from former councillor Brian Swanson, but that was the number one lesson. 

During budget deliberations last week, a recommendation to move garbage pickup to bi-weekly year-round was rejected by city council. 

The recommendation was put in front of city council because it would save operation costs of nearly $89,000 per year and it encouraged greater use of the recycling program. 

Coun. Crystal Froese has she’s heard from many residents in the past about their feeling towards garbage pickup. 

“The previous council, we talked about the level of service and what our citizens expect and what they will pay for,” she said.  

“I think it was pretty loud and clear about the garbage that they felt that they were OK with paying for additional service in the summertime.” 

The current system has bi-weekly pickup from January to May, weekly pickup from June to July, and back to bi-weekly pickup from October to December. 

Coun. Doug Blanc said, if anything, we would like to see the weekly garbage pickup expanded into October. 

“Firstly, I think it should be expanded in the fall because you know most people are cleaning up their yard in October because the trees don't cooperate with the city schedule for the leaves.” 

Administration noted that there is an increased amount of recyclable material and material that could be sent it diversion programs such as SARCAN, Household Hazardous Waste, and charitable groups that end up in the waste stream. 

They said the underutilized recycling program participation does increase during bi-weekly garbage collection.