City of Ottawa considering bag tag system for garbage pickup

City of Ottawa staff are considering implementing a bag tag system for municipal garbage collection that would require residents pay extra for putting out multiple garbage bags, CTV News Ottawa has learned.

Several sources with knowledge of the proposal tell CTV News Ottawa that it will be presented to councillors next week. Sources said the program would give residents an allotment of tags for garbage bags and once that allotment runs out, they would need to purchase more. It's unknown how much tags would cost.

Ottawa's director of solid waste services Shelley McDonald told CTV News Ottawa in a statement that staff are preparing a report for the Environment and Climate Change Committee.

"Staff will be bringing a report with recommendations regarding waste collection to the next Environment and Climate Change Committee. Further details regarding the recommendations will be available once the report is made public in the coming weeks," she said.

Many other municipalities use a bag tag system, including Kingston, Carleton Place, and Gatineau. In Kingston, residents can put out one untagged bag for collection, but every additional bag requires a tag, which cost $2 each. In Carleton Place, the tags are $3 each. The city of Gatineau also requires tags for any bags that do not fit in a home's grey bin, up to a maximum of five extra bags per week. A sheet of five tags costs $2.50.

The idea is meant to reduce the amount of trash going to landfills, encourage greater use of green bins and recycling, and increase sustainable habits.

A June 2021 report said the average curbside set out, based on 2018-2019 waste audit study, is 3.6 items bi-weekly for garbage and 0.6 items set out biweekly for bulky items. Staff said in order for bag limits to work, they must be set at a limit that is below or at the average garbage set-out rate in order to encourage diversion.

Staff also acknowledged that a "pay as you throw" model would be met with resistance, because it might require significant behaviour changes from residents and could increase costs for some.

"The fee needs to be set appropriately to disincentivize residents who can afford to just pay extra to dispose of more waste, but still remain affordable for others," staff said.

Kanata-South Coun. Allan Hubley told CTV News Ottawa he would not support a bag tag charge.

"I am not supportive of continuing to blame the resident for issues we as the city should have focused on earlier," he said. "We should have looked at options to help residents and achieve our targets, as I often said, instead of adding costs and tasks to their busy lives."

He said issues with bag tags include the theft of tags and increased cases of dumping garbage on the roadside, in parks or behind businesses.

"The mayor and council need to break this practice of downloading onto to taxpayers what we have the resources to boldly do," he said.

Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard, chair of the city's environment committee, says the city needs to make changes to how it handles its garbage.

"It's $300 to $400 million to site a new landfill or to go to an incineration model, so very expensive for residents. We need to do something differently because what we're doing right now is going to have a full landfill in 12 to 15 years," he said.

Menard suggested that any changes that are brought forward would be phased in.

"Nothing's been decided yet. There's still a lot of discussion to go on this, and obviously consultation has been ongoing for some time now, but committee and council still needs to review the issue and see what kind of implementation timeline there would be."

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe told reporters Wednesday that the conversation around waste management is ongoing but he pointed out that the city needs to extend the life of its landfill.

"The number one thing is no one wants to build another landfill so we have to make sure that we are doing everything we can to reduce what we're sending to landfill to prolong the use of the existing landfill site for as long as possible," he said.

Sutcliffe said the conversation around the city's waste management plan needs to take into account the different needs of urban, suburban, and rural residents.

The city of Ottawa is working on a new solid waste master plan because the Trail Road dump is approaching the end of its useful life. The facility is more than 70 per cent full, and the city is expecting it to run out of room by 2036 to 2038. 

--With files from CTV News Ottawa's Graham Richardson and Leah Larocque.