Thorsby prepares for new waste collection services

THORSBY -- The Town of Thorsby is crafting a new Water, Wastewater, and Solid Waste Bylaw.

The goal of the new bylaw is to prepare the municipality for its new waste collection services, which will be administered by Integrity Waste Solutions. Thorsby Chief Financial Officer Cindy Van Leest says the new services will see a variety of changes to the way that household waste, recycling, and organic waste are collected in the township.

"Recycling is now every week, and will be every other Tuesday," said Van Leest. "Organics will be every week until November, then it will go to every other week. Garbage goes to every other week."

The new Water, Wastewater, and Solid Waste Bylaw -- which received its first reading last week -- also implements a number of changes to the fees associated with waste pickup. According to Thorsby staff, this will see residential, commercial, and industrial waste fees change from $16.75/unit/month to $12.25/unit/month. Seniors' complexes will change from $59.25/month to $43.35/month.

For recycling, residential, commercial, and industrial unit recycling will change from $3.75/unit/month to $5.00/unit/month. This comes as the Town says that multi-residential recycling fees are yet to be determined and will be provided. For organic waste, residential, commercial, and industrial unit fees will be $10.75/unit/month.

"Overall cost per month is going to go up eight dollars," said Van Leest. "I know when we talked about it in Council we said five, but that's because we were estimating the amount of tonnage being taken out of Thorsby."

The Town of Thorsby says it hopes the new bylaw will allow for a smooth transition into the new services.