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City Council approves Solid Waste Management Services' 2012 Rates and Operating/Capital Budget
Following discussion and voting at the November 10, 2011 Budget Committee meeting and the November 21 Executive Committee meeting, City of Toronto Council at its November 29 meeting approved with certain amendments the 2012 rates and budget for Solid Waste Management Services.
There will be a 0% rate increase in 2012 for the majority of Solid Waste's residential customers. A variety of adjustments designed to improve billing systems and create, fair, harmonized rates across the entire customer base were approved.
One of the changes expands the eligibility criteria for existing eligible commercial properties that pay a fee to include other non-residential groups (e.g. hospitals, places of worship, profit and non-profit nursing or retirement homes or daycares, property owned/operated by a registered charity, social service organizations, etc.) that do not pay a fee now, even though they currently pay for all other utilities received. This will create consistency for this customer base across the former municipalities, provide an incentive for them to improve diversion rates and avoid rate increases for those already on the program. Letter sent November 3 to affected Non-Residential groups (PDF).
A Questions and Answers document provides more detail about how the proposed rate system would work for Non-Residential customers.
More detailed information on all of the rate and budget details, including the presentation, Analyst Notes, two News Releases (November 10 and 29, 2011) and Media Backgrounder, is available via the 2012 City Budget web page.
Diverting News
The City of Toronto's Waste Diversion Team, for City Agencies, Boards, Commissions and Divisions published "Diverting News", which outlines its organizations' efforts to divert 70% of its waste by 2010. The Team's collective waste diversion rate went from 39% in 2004 to 67% in 2010; its organizations diverted about 300,000 metric tonnes of waste to recycling from landfill. They avoid the fee for tipping waste into landfill ($64/metric tonne), reduced their environmental footprint and make recyclable materials available to environmental industry.
