There are any number of situations or circumstances where that expression is credible, and one of them seemed to be the generation of electricity, whether that be through hydro (water), nuclear, natural gas-fired, or coal-fired. Regardless of the means of generation, electric power has storage problems that raise the possibility of having a valuable, albeit renewable source of energy being wasted if demand falls short of generation.
Calling electricity a renewable resource makes it sound like it’s clean energy, and there’s no reason why that can’t be true. Hydro-electricity is about as clean as you’re going to get, but it has limitations in terms of its dependence upon sources of moving water, as in rivers, and the enormous costs involved with the construction of generation dams and the lines of transmission that convey the electricity generated to the markets where it will be consumed.
In a lot of things, there’s what we once did, what we do, and what we’re going to do moving forward.
I guess that statement seems to be a reflection of the fact that time doesn’t stand still for any of us as people, and it works that way for municipalities as well.
It’s the old “once we finally get things figured out and solved, something happens to change it” thing. It’s like you finally master your online banking interface, but then they change it to make it “better,” which of course means making it better for anyone not named you.
It’s like that in the garbage business, and by extension, the recycling business.
What was once a Stewardship Model has been replaced by government regulations changing things to a Producer Responsibility Model, which to most of us means next to nothing but to a municipality awash in recyclable materials, as they all are, it means quite a bit in terms of compliance, planning, re-jigging what had already been jigged, and then paying for the whole damned thing. The new regime takes effect on January 1, 2026.
If you thought there was two types of recycling, then you were right. Nothing’s changed in the mixed co-mingled and fibre distinctions, the big choice you have to make once a week when you’re trying to remember which blue box you’re going to lug out to the curb. A blue box full of stuff at the end of the day is usually your answer as to whether you made that choice correctly.
But now there are two other distinctions to recycling, eligible and non-eligible. And so the question arises, what makes eligible eligible?
As simply as I possibly can, things can be broken up into two categories, residential and commercial/institutional/industrial. The first group, residential, is considered eligible, as in edible for continued curbside pick-up, meaning the least amount of change brought by the new government regulations. The second, the businesses and industries that make up the commercial/industrial category, are no longer eligible for this level of service unless the municipality in question decides to take on that additional cost.
Poor Renfrew. To be saddled with eye-watering debt, cutting or reducing services, increasing property taxes, and now some other gawd-awful thing raises its stupid head to demand more financial resources that you don’t have. It’s a spend-more scenario in an environment of spend-less. It’s enough to make any councillor reach for that forty-pounder of rye they’ve been saving for their child’s Confirmation and putting a tangible dent into the thing. They should just go ahead and pass a bylaw allowing councillors, and only councillors, to drink alcohol during council meetings, just to take the edge off things and steady the hand on the tiller.
Currently, Renfrew makes 319 stops that will now be considered to be non-eligible, including every one of the places operated by the town itself. This is currently done at a rate of $15/stop, but you can be guaranteed that a price like that is on its way out the window. It’s these places that are going to be the problem.
If Council were to determine to continue picking up this stuff from these stops, what would that entail? What would that look like? How would it be funded?
Staff has already undertaken a brief survey of the battlefield, and found that some municipalities are already on the road to compliance, as Renfrew is, but have adopted styles unique to themselves. Some continue to pick it up, and others put the responsibility on business owners themselves to get their recycling to a depot specific to that purpose. In one case, in Mississippi Mills, the municipality was quoted a sobering $65/stop for the service, as compared to Renfrew’s current yet soon to be extinct $15/stop. It’s more than a four-fold difference, but Manager Amanda Springer is of the opinion that whatever cost eventually accrues to Renfrew, it’ll be less than the Mississippi Mills quote. So some small solace there.
The decisions facing Council are those of a short-term nature, and of a long-term nature.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 