Delta remains one of the few municipalities in Metro Vancouver to have garbage collection weekly, rather than every other week.
Summarizing current municipal waste collection service models, a new report to the region’s Zero Waste Committee states that 84 per cent of the single-family properties in Metro Vancouver receive every-other-week garbage collection and 95 per cent receive weekly green bin collection.
The majority of single-family residences also receive weekly multi-stream recycling collection using bags and bins, with the remainder receive every-other-week single stream recycling collection using wheeled carts.
Member jurisdictions fund single-family garbage and green bin programs through utility fees, property taxes, or a combination of both.
Residential recycling of packaging and paper is funded through Recycle BC with the service provided by the municipalities under contract with Recycle BC or directly by Recycle BC. Most municipalities have a standard set of material collected as determined by Recycle BC.
When it comes to garbage collection, according to the report, only Delta, the District of North Vancouver and the Tsawwassen First Nation have a municipal weekly collection. The communities also have weekly green bin and recycling pick-ups.
A 2016 Metro report noted that approximately 70 per cent of the single-family population in the region had every-other-week garbage collection. Changes to every-other-week garbage collection have in many cases been implemented in parallel with expansion of organics collection programs.
Typically, organics collection has been expanded to include all food scraps and organics collection has been changed from every-other-week to weekly.
The last time there was talk of Delta possibly switching to every-other-week garbage pick-up was in 2014, when the issue was discussed at a city Environmental Advisory Committee meeting. At the time, it was noted changing the garbage pick-up schedule “will not be considered in the immediate future and could be discussed when the garbage contracts are close to expiring.”
Delta at that time was just one of five Lower Mainland communities to still have weekly collection, not following the lead of cities like neighbouring Surrey, where trash collection had been switched to every second week using automated trash trucks.
The city’s contract with Remple Disposal Ltd. has since been renewed without a change to the garbage pick-up schedule.
Remple provides weekly curbside collection of garbage, recycling and green waste from approximately 30,000 single-family dwellings and secondary suites, as well as the annual Spring Clean-Up program, and also weekly shared recycling collection from approximately 6,400 multi-family units.
The City of Delta is home to the Vancouver Landfill, receiving royalties, while not having to pay to dump at the landfill.
