There will be a tipping fee applied to bulk loads of yard and garden waste disposed of at Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) landfills beginning March 1.
That includes the sites near Falkland – Glenemma, located at 3125 McTavish Road, and the unscaled site at 2870 Wetaskiwin Road.
The purpose of this fee change is to standardize disposal rates for larger commercial-type operations doing land clearing-type activities.
The fee will be $80/tonne for disposal of land clearing or yard waste brought to the landfill in large vehicles or trailers. Larger vehicles/trailers are defined as anything with two or more rear axles and examples may include:
- all tandem-axle trucks;
- all tandem-axle dump/bin trucks;
- all tandem-axle trailers.
Free disposal of yard and garden waste will remain in place for smaller vehicles or trailers with a single axle including:
- cars;
- SUVs;
- pick-up trucks;
- single-axle dump/bin trucks;
- single-axle trailers.
In addition, CSRD transfer stations will no longer be accepting loads of yard waste from tandem-axle vehicles. These large vehicles will have to go to a CSRD landfill for disposal. This will ensure there will be available space for residents to drop off their yard waste at transfer stations.
In January 2018, the CSRD adopted the free yard waste disposal program, which was designed to give residents access to an environmentally-friendly, economical solution to yard-waste disposal of items like leaves, grass clippings and branches. This has helped reduce open burning and illegal dumping of this type of waste.
Since this change, however, an increasing number of individuals and commercial businesses are bringing in large loads of land-clearing waste using heavy equipment. The large loads are overwhelming the space at transfer stations. This is also causing problems with composting, as much of the waste can not be processed properly due to the amount of stumps, rocks and soil in the loads.
As part of this, the CSRD is reducing the current tipping fee of $160/tonne for land-clearing waste to $80/tonne. This will simplify the load assessments for landfill workers because the rate for disposing of land-clearing waste in a tandem-axle vehicle will now be the same $80/tonne yard-waste disposal rate.
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roger@vernonmorningstar.com
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