Editor's note: Mr. Link writes in response to the BayToday story Dump bump: Landfill tipping fees to rise? To clarify, the City does not tell the media when to release news.
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Dear editor,
With regards to the meeting at City Hall about landfill fees, I’m not sure if the City released the meeting info an hour before the meeting or if the media was instructed to release it with such short notice. It seems that the people who would be affected by this fee increase were not given ample time to attend the meeting, let alone prepare questions or concerns. This will be the third consecutive year that the tipping fees have increased, and contractors like myself are feeling it.
The article talks about the price increases from $105 per tonne to $110 per tonne for commercial waste, but it doesn’t talk about how the landfill employees can arbitrarily decide to charge double that fee if they “feel” that the load is “mixed” (ie, wood mixed with drywall).
Anyone who has ever done any form of renovation knows that separating the wood from the drywall or the vinyl flooring from the plywood would be very time-consuming, and therefore, would all end up in the same bin/trailer/dumpster. The rule they use is 10% but that cannot be proven, and when questioned about it, the employees either shrug their shoulders and say “Those are the rules” or direct you to a higher-up supervisor who doesn’t respond to emails or phone calls. Let me also add, that the wood goes into the landfill anyway, whether you separate it or not, it just gets chipped into smaller bits first.
It seems like the $220 per tonne is a small price to pay but when contractors are bringing up 30-40 tonnes per year, it adds up. I’m not arguing for myself here, as I’m not paying the fees. The client(s) I work for are paying those fees, so I guess I’m trying to help them.
And I have one last bone to pick with how this system is set up.
The tipping fees are based on weight, not volume. It is my opinion that volume matters more than weight, purely based on the fact that the landfill has no weight capacity, however it does have a volume capacity. Compare 10 tonnes of wood to 10 tonnes of styrofoam. The styrofoam is going to take up way more space than the wood, which limits the capacity of the landfill, but still gets the same amount of revenue. This form of volume measurement could also be done with a measuring tape rather than an expensive weigh scale.
Maybe the City should have left the landfill contract to Bruman. Maybe BayToday can look into how much the City is saving by looking after the landfill itself, and then we will see why the fees have increased so much since the takeover.
See: City officially dumps landfill partner despite some opposition
And: Merrick Landfill the latest in a string of poor decisions which have left taxpayers reeling
Enjoy your day,
Spencer Link
ProLink Contracting & Electrical
North Bay
