Saint John curbside recycling program costs grow thanks to COVID-19 pandemic

The City of Saint John's effort to bring curbside recycling to its residents had to jump another hurdle created by the COVID-19 pandemic Monday night.

Council approved taking up to $400,000 from the city's capital reserve fund to cover the increased cost of purchasing recycling bins and garbage containers.

Staff said supply chain issues caused by the pandemic are driving up the price for 42,000 recycling bins and 18,600 large garbage bins.

It's not the first time the plan has faced the effects of the pandemic.

A pilot program to test the idea was supposed to go ahead in select neighbourhoods in early 2020, but COVID-19 delayed it multiple times.

It finally went ahead last summer, and council approved rolling out a city-wide program late last year after seeing the results of the pilot.

Coun. Gary Sullivan, who sits on the city's finance committee, said the increase in cost won't affect this year's budget.

"I should mention that the $400,000 is being recommended to come from our capital reserve," Sullivan said. "That's that rainy day fund which currently has a little under $7.3 million available in it.

"So the money is there to do it without putting a big dent in the fund."

Late last year, the city's commissioner of public works, Mike Hugenholtz told CBC's Information Morning Saint John that the pilot had been a success.

Hugenhotlz said trash bound for the landfill fell by 17 per cent. He said if that happened city-wide, it would save $190,000 in tipping fees yearly. 

He said recycling participation increased from about 20 per cent to 50 per cent of households.

The plan is to pick up compost, plastic and paper recycling on opposite weeks from garbage pickup.

Residents can put out enough garbage to fill a 180-litre garbage container without charge. Any additional bags will cost $2 a piece to have them picked up.

Coun. Paula Radwan was the only councillor not to support spending the extra money, even though she said she fully supports recycling and composting.

"I feel like we're spending a lot of money without enough consultation, so that is why I'm voting against this."

Radwan said that some of the comments from people involved in the pilot project suggest there's work to be done on the consultation side.

"I am worried that if we don't do enough risk mitigation before this gets rolled out that it's, you know, if you think your customer service lines are ringing now, it's going to ring a lot," she said. 

"So, you know, I'm encouraging staff to try to figure out what sort of hiccups that we're going to have before we actually roll this out. This is an investment of almost $2 million, so it's extremely important not to put the cart before the horse."

Sullivan pointed out that not every neighbourhood will take part in the rollout right away.

"Staff still plan to do consultation in neighbourhoods where concerns have been raised, particularly … around the ability to pay and storage of the bins. So those conversations are still happening."

Sullivan said that even with the added cost of the bins, it should take about six years of anticipated savings to make back the initial recycling program costs.