St. Paul garbage routes staying put in 2021

The routes taken by the garbage collection truck in St. Paul will stay the same in 2021 following feedback from the general public at the tele-town hall Nov. 3.

The town had planned to move roughly 90 per cent of the community to curb side pick-up when the new bins are rolled out in the spring.

“I am suggesting the program move forward with the current route system we already have in place as a pilot project for at least one year, just to mainly let us get through all the seasons and see how it works,” said Steven Jeffery, the town’s Director of Public Works. He noted back alley pick up should still be possible for the majority of rate payers and was a significant concern raised at the tele-town hall meeting.

According to Jeffery, the new bins will cost $180,050 which was budgeted in the 2020 Capital Plan.

Coun. Nathan Taylor asked if the price of the bins included the cost of the RFID tags, which use radio waves to transfer data and tie the bin to a specific address in town.

According to Jeffery, the suppliers will no longer give tenders that don’t include the RFID because other communities have changed their minds after ordering and “it’s a real pain in the neck to go in after and include the RFID. So to answer your question, yes, the RFID coating will be inside these bins.”

Coun. Ron Boisvert asked if the bins would be dropped off to the same location the town will be collecting garbage from at residences.

Jeffery said part of the tender package’s specifications is that the supplier is responsible for the building of the bins, as well as assigning each bin to an address and delivering them there. He noted there would likely be difficulty with delivering the bins to the back alleys as people might not know they had received them.

Coun. Brad Eamon wanted to know if the town was still investigating a possible third party taking over waste collection.

CAO Kim Heyman said they are, but the information she’s received so far is that it would be extremely expensive.

“What I’ve got verbally so far has been three times what we’re looking at for buying the bins on top of which we have a truck,” said Heyman.

Taylor made a motion to approve administration move forward with tendering the purchase of waste bins for the Town of St. Paul. The motion carried.

According to Jeffery, the town expects the new garbage bins to be delivered sometime in spring 2021.