A manager of a top recycling firm is stepping up his battle to can the city’s plan for curbside collections by asking his customers to vote against all municipal election candidates who back the project.
Fred Stevenson, who runs the Residential Recycling office, plans to send a letter to all of his clients outlining his arguments and asking them to vote against anyone who supports city-run curbside recycling in next month’s civic election.
He insists officials are not being honest about how much the project will cost taxpayers, and his company stands to lose a vast amount of business if the city’s plans to implement the program in 2009 are carried out.
Stevenson faces an uphill battle — particularly since he is preaching to the very people who are most likely to support the city. “I know some businesses will suffer, but my desire to see everyone in Calgary recycle is stronger,” says Terry Orr, a customer of Residential Recycling in Marda Loop. “We have to look out for the greater good. I see where the people at Residential are coming from because I am a businessman, but I am very pro-recycling. Hopefully there is some way they can adapt.”
Within the next two years, the city plans to start running curbside recycling for 300,000 homes, collecting newspapers, magazines, mixed paper, cardboard, food cans, glass, milk cartons and jugs, and plastics. Officials say it will cost $8 per household per month. Stevenson insists this is impossible.
“The city’s plans are almost criminal,” he says. “At first, they told us it was going to cost $21 (per month), and then days later they just came up with $8 (per month). There is no way that is the real cost. Take Edmonton, for example — it costs their residents $18 per month. That is the absolute minimum when you take into account all of the new trucks they will need as well as labour and benefits. We’ve been doing this for 15 years, and we know what we’re talking about. They will never be able to do it as cheaply as the private sector.”
City officials, however, promise their figures are acurrate. “The weekly collection of recyclables and plastics will cost no more than $8 per household per month”, says Dave Griffiths, director of waste and recycling. “The City of Calgary’s focus is to deliver cost effective and environmentally responsible service to Calgarians. Once this service is in place, we estimate being able to recycle enough paper to save a million trees every year.”
A spokesman for the city says the original $21 program included more services such as weekly pickup and processing food and yard waste. The $8 plan includes neither.
While not everyone in Calgary backs the plans, it appears Stevenson’s arguments to customers will likely fall on deaf ears. Orr’s neighbour on 32 St. S.W., Suzanne Blackwell, is also heavily in favour of the city’s plans.
“Curbside recycling should already be here,” she insists. “How ridiculous are we that it has taken this long? They have had it forever in other places, like Vancouver. We need it as soon as possible.”
Orr, who runs the online sales department at The Source Skate and Snowboard Shop, encouraged Blackwell to start using Residential Recycling’s service this summer. It costs both Blackwell and Orr about $14 per month.
“It is a good service,” Orr says. “I just want to see more people in Calgary recycling and looking after the environment. When I moved here from the West Coast a few years ago, people’s attitudes made me so angry. Calgary is the laughing stock of North America when it comes to the environment. Even Edmonton is better. You can’t just throw garbage into the river. It should also be illegal to throw out things that can be recycled.”
According to Stevenson, Residential has to go to a select few streets on different days because they are in such high demand and have had to make scheduling adaptations. “At one point, we had to stop taking new customers,” he says. “We have bought a couple more trucks and started taking on new drivers and new customers every day now.”
For Orr and Blackwell, that demand is only more evidence that residents of Calgary are ready for the city to provide the new service.
