Mayor Bondy’s motion to get stats on effectiveness, cost of Green Bin program supported

by Sylene Argent, Local Journalism Initiative

Members of Essex County Council provided unanimous support to Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy’s motion to ask the Essex Windsor Solid Waste Authority (EWSWA) to provide available statistics to date on the effectiveness of the Green Bin organics collection program in each of the County’s seven local municipalities.

  The County will also ask for available statistics to date on the effectiveness of the program in urban areas and rural areas, details of the public education campaign to date and for future planned campaigns, and the cost of the program to each of the seven local municipalities.

  The decision was made at the February 4 County Council meeting, after three residents appeared as delegates to speak about their concerns or opinions on the program, and an administrative report was provided to detail the evolution of the program over the last handful of years.  

No matter how the information comes, it is good to get it, Bondy said, who first presented this as a Notice of Motion at the January 21 meeting.

  County Council was told in December that 27% of households were actively participating in the program, and she wondered if that number combined the County’s uptake with the City’s.

  Data is going to provide information that will help County Council – at the end of the seven-year contract – if rural areas should continue to be included or if vouchers for backyard composters should be provided.

  “We are in this program now; we are all in it. We need to see, we’re making gains,” Bondy said. 

  She also wants to see the public education program be successful to support extending the life of the regional landfill.

  The request will go to EWSWA to see what kind of data it can pull.

  Recently, many residents across the county voiced upset and concern of the estimated costs when it was released: Essex $156.80, Lakeshore $159.03, LaSalle, $158.28, Tecumseh, $154.13. As part of phase two of the program with pick-up not starting until the fall, Leamington was charged $33.80, Kingsville $33.66, and Amherstburg $33.99.

  County Council will learn of the actual cost of the organic Green Bin program through the presentation of the User Fee By-Law – and how that will be divided-up per household included in the program – at the February 18 meeting.

  The County at this time does not have reserves set aside for this program.

Three residents provide

feedback publicly

At last week’s meeting, the regional decision makers heard from three delegates – Tim Vickerd, a resident of Lakeshore, Ryan McNamara, a Councillor with Lakeshore who spoke as a resident, and Carolyn Crankshaw, a resident of McGregor – who voiced concerns and opinions regarding the Green Bin Program.

  In these financial times, many are having a hard time putting food on the table, Vickerd said.

  “You would have been better served asking the people if they wanted to use the program instead of forcing it on us, especially the municipalities that were not mandated.”

  Three of the local municipalities were not provincially mandated to be part of an organics program – Essex, Kingsville, Lakeshore. However, a County Council motion in 2022 included all seven municipalities.

  Vickerd wondered if the County could have reduced the size of the program to the urban areas as was originally planned, and adjust the cost accordingly. A majority vote in June of 2024 expanded the program beyond urban areas to include rural areas.

  He appreciated the municipal reps on County Council who voted opposed to expanding the program to rural areas, which included Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy and Deputy Mayor Rob Shepley.

  “You were trying to look after us taxpayers of your municipalities,” Vickerd said.

  With the cost of the program for the County, he said even if the 50% household usage target was met, he estimated the County could have saved millions on just the cost of the Green Bins at this time with a smaller program scope.

  In his years of experience in helping to run a family business, success would not have been possible without knowing the true cost of all aspects beforehand. We wondered why Miller Waste, which was selected to collect the organic material in April of 2024 on a seven-year contract, when there was no idea if the program would be successful.

  Vickerd wanted to know why the rural areas were lumped in with the urban, and why an opt-out option was not offered. “We are now supporting areas financially to keep their costs down,” he said.

  “I hope you can come up with a solution less costly, so the taxpayers can afford to live,” he added.

  Ryan McNamara noted the feedback on the program, in his opinion, regarded the urban/rural divide. The argument “all rural residents compost” is “not factually true,” he said.

  As a rural resident who has composted for the last 15-years, he said he is still using the Green Bin program as there are items it accepts that can’t be added to a backyard compost bin.

  The reason to use the program is to save space in the landfill, he noted.

  “I know everyone is frustrated at the cost of this, but there is a cost of not doing anything,” McNamara said. Not doing anything means running out of space at the landfill and needing to create a new one.

  Ensuring educational materials reach rural residents, outlining the benefits of the program, is necessary. It is frustrating to him to see the low uptake in the rural areas. 

  When organic materials break down in the landfill, they create methane gas, he added, which has an environmental cost.

  Carolyn Crankshaw said she represented hundreds of residents who contacted her directly over the past week and those who are signing a petition wanting to be able to opt-out of the Green Bin program.

  In the future, she will provide a copy of the multi-town petition requesting opt-outs for home composting, seniors, disabled residents, rural homes, and low-income households.

  “This is not against the organics collection, this is just about transparency, fairness, and correcting decisions that were made without proper public awareness or options for residents who cannot use the service,” she said. 

Residents from the different municipalities received different information about the program, Crankshaw surmised.

  “This created confusion, distrust, and frustration. A program that affects every household financially should have been communicated clearly before the roll-out, not pieced together by residents after the bins hit the curb,” Crankshaw said.

  She also spoke of how the Province mandated organics for municipalities, based on certain population density criteria.

  Locally, Windsor had to implement a curbside program to single family dwellings in an urban settlement area and achieve a target rate of reduction of 70%. Amherstburg, LaSalle, Leamington, and Tecumseh were required to offer a program to single family dwellings in an urban settlement area and to achieve a target waste rate of reduction of 50%. Essex, Kingsville, and Lakeshore were not required to enter such a program, but were told at the time they could be in the future as populations expand.

  Including all County municipalities was decided in a March 2022 vote done by the previous Term of County Council, and in 2024 when a majority vote expanded the program to include rural areas.

  “That choice needs to be clearly acknowledged,” Crankshaw commented, as the County expanded its own scope. Her opinion was that the County chose the most expensive model.

  She also had concern that the program is being promoted as being environmentally responsible, however, trucks are being driven along rural routes to pick-up bins she assumes are only a quarter-of-the-way-full.

  Crankshaw also wanted the household participation rate. To her own research, many municipalities offer exemptions, opt-outs, or alternatives. 

  She asked County Council to provide a transparent break-down of long-term costs beyond 2026, review and publish the participation rate and efficiency metrics, revisit the decision to deny opt-outs and explore exemption models, and have administration report on alternative delivery models.

 Background report received

Melissa Ryan, Director of Financial Services, presented a report on the County Green Bin Program at the meeting, as a result of the feedback heard from residents as of late. The report outlined the background information on the program.

  It outlined that since 2021, a series of decisions have been made by this and the previous Term of County Council that led to developing the program as it is today. That included to proceed as a regional program, to include all County municipalities, to include rural and urban households, and to fund the program in a way that ensures only households included in the program are billed. For example, only residential dwellings with six or less units are included.  

Ryan noted that while the program launched in 2021 with phase one municipalities – Windsor, Essex, Lakeshore, LaSalle, and Tecumseh – the first charges will not appear on tax bills of phase one residents until June. The phase two municipalities will join the program in the fall, and will be billed accordingly.

 Council comments

Essex Mayor Bondy spoke of how the County is a hidden level of government. Residents do not pay attention to what happens around that horseshoe-shaped decision-making table, as they are other levels of government.

  “We need to work hard around this table to ensure people are following what we are doing, because we are doing a lot of things that impact people, and their lives, and their budgets, and their grocery bills, and people aren’t aware,” she said.

  She asked if there was any thought to post out the estimated cost beyond the County Council brief. During 2026 Budget Deliberations, County Council didn’t speak enough of the impact the Green Bin program would have on residents. She understood why many have voiced concern or are upset.

  More consultation on difficult files never hurts, Bondy said.

  CAO Sandra Zwiers spoke of the reports over the years, which has shared information about the program and EWSWA shared information on the estimated cost for the program in July of 2024.

  She spoke of how there is a six-month window between when phase-one residents are billed and the report in December that highlighted EWSWA’s 2026 Budget to allow residents time for the bill to arrive. The program costs are spread out over the tax installment basis and are not charged all at once.

  Essex Deputy Mayor Rob Shepley sits on the EWSWA board. He noted Windsor is having a very different rollout of the program than the County, largely due to how it handled the cost. It is not free for their residents, as it is paid in some way through tax dollars, either through reserves or another way. If reserves are used, everyone is paying for the program, whether they are included or not.

  “Even if reserves were used to soften the impact today, those reserves would still need to be rebuilt. Ultimately, that results in future tax pressure,” he further explained to the Essex Free Press.

  The education EWSWA put out through the campaign was well-engaged and received, and clearly explained all the benefits of the program. The same was done through the County. What wasn’t received was that dollar amount, he said.

  Making decisions without having all the answers is difficult, he noted.

  “I understand why you are here. I would feel the same as you do,” he told the delegates.

  Shepley posted the costs in 2024. The County still does not have an exact number. Once the organics program was released, the dollar amount should have been provided.   

  “If we learned anything from this, having that FAQ that is now up – and I appreciate that it is up – is probably the most important thing we could have done all the way along,” Shepley said, noting it could have been updated as decisions on the program were made.

  People were upset when the dollar figure came about, and the FAQ was not available to help the local decision-makers answer questions and provide the timeline on how everything transpired. As a result, some information provided was not correct. He thanked staff for getting that information posted, “I just wish it had been available sooner.” 

  Now, some residents feel misled, “and that is not the intent of anybody when we try to answer these questions and try to get you the information,” Shepley said, adding the file started before he and some others currently on County Council had been elected to represent their municipalities on the upper-tier municipal government.

  For matters of this scope, he wondered if forming a Resident Advisory Committee would be beneficial in helping to share information and help to make decisions. 

  “I think we need to own that and ask ourselves how those costs could have been communicated more clearly and earlier, so residents had a real opportunity to engage,” Shepley told the Essex Free Press. “I can say this firsthand; trust and transparency pave the way for public confidence. Once trust is shaken, every number and every explanation gets questioned.”

  LaSalle Deputy Mayor Mike Akpata spoke of the high cost to create a new landfill – likely in the hundreds of millions – and how the program will help extend its longevity.

  Kingsville Deputy Mayor Kim DeYong noted her municipality was considering options that did not put more trucks on the road and would have come in at a lower cost, but was outvoted at County Council.

  “We could have hidden the cost within the [tax] levy by combining it with your garbage [rate], but instead we voted for transparency so you would know what this service is costing you,” DeYong said of the County Council vote in June of 2024 to have the charge appear as an Essex County levy on the municipal tax bills of residents who receive the service.

  Kingsville Mayor Dennis Rogers spoke of the larger producers of organics, such as commercial and industrial properties. Zwiers noted she and the EWSWA have spoken about potential collaboration for advocacy to have more conversations with the provincial government to look more broadly to the larger users.