Saint John residents will start receiving their new garbage containers and recycling bins on Monday.

The distribution will mark the beginning of the city's Waste Wise Program, which will include curbside recycling and a cap on the amount of garbage picked up for free. 

Saint John Mayor Donna Reardon said the current collection model needed to be modernized to encourage recycling and waste reduction. 

"We need to look at the planet, and we need to look at the environment," she said. "We know that the landfills are a problem and that they will eventually become a bigger problem."

A report prepared by city hall staff after Waste Wise was piloted in 2021, says the new system increased active recycling from 15 to 25 per cent of residents within the pilot project area to 49 per cent. It also decreased garbage tonnage from 79 per cent 61.5 per cent.

Waste Wise is scheduled to be implemented city-wide on Oct. 23. 

Before then, most civic addresses that currently have curbside pickup for garbage will receive a 180-litre cart. Households will be limited to the volume of that cart per biweekly pickup.

Residents in the south-central peninsula, old north end, and Waterloo Village will not receive a cart and will continue with bag collection. They will be limited to one a week. 

The report says each cart is expected to hold about two average-size garbage bags. Any additional bags will cost residents $2 each through a "bag tag" system. These tags will be available at the city hall customer service centre and other locations.

The Waste Wise provisions, including the neighbourhood exceptions, will also apply to tenants in apartment buildings with four or fewer units. Owners of apartment buildings with five or more units will have to provide recycling and garbage collection services to their tenants. 

The new at-your-door recycling service will also see the decommissioning of blue bins around the city where residents currently drop off their recycling. The city will be delivering a green and blue recycling tote to all households before the Waste Wise system is implemented. 

Reardon acknowledges the challenges associated with change, but she expects most residents support transitioning to a greener alternative. 

"There seems to be that buy-in," she said. "We're talking about climate change, we're talking about mitigation plans for cities and so I think it's important to citizens and I think it's one way that as a citizen, you have that opportunity to impact it yourself."

Roxanne MacKinnon, the executive director of the environmental non-profit ACAP Saint John, is optimistic the program will lead to significantly higher recycling rates. 

"I'm very hopeful the curbside recycling program will remove a lot of barriers for people," she said. "Right now if you don't have a car you basically can't recycle. … Being able to put it in a bin in your house and take it out on recycling day will be very beneficial and hopefully divert a lot of waste."

According to MacKinnon, a better recycling system for Saint John is a step in the right direction, but it's by no means the final solution. 

"Recycling is very important, but reducing waste overall is equally as important to think about what you're buying and where it's going," she said. "Small changes that we could all do will have a very large impact across the board."

MacKinnon said APAC expects transitioning to the new solid waste system could cause a temporary increase in illegal dumping and litter. 

City staff make note of the risk in the 2021 report, but say they're not expecting it to outweigh benefits.

The report says any increase in the volume of dumping will be documented and monitored. 

City council has been discussing curbside recycling for nearly a decade. The Waste Wise Program has been in the works since 2019. It was scheduled to run as a pilot program in 2020 but was pushed until the following year because of COVID-19. 

In the 2021 report, city staff call the May-to-September project a success. 

It involved 1,014 residential stops serving the Rockwood and Latimore Lake areas. Based on the garbage reduced by these neighborhoods during the pilot, city staff estimate Saint John could save about $190,000 in landfill tipping fees annually once the program is fully implemented. 

City staff expect the cost of total implementation will be about $3 million.

In a news release, city spokesperson Nathalie Logan says communication about the program will continue throughout the coming weeks and months to ensure all questions are answered. 

Katie Hartai is a reporter based out of Saint John. Her favourite stories to tell involve the environment and mental health. Contact her at katie.hartai@cbc.ca.

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