The City of Timmins is giving a test run to some garbage and recycling collection changes.
Environmental 360 Solutions has been awarded a one-year, $201,573 contract for the areas that still have manual garbage collection and for the Wednesday and Thursday rural collections. The tender also formalizes the process for contract support that the city relies on during equipment breakdowns and shortages has also been formalized.
“We’re not looking at any service impact changes to the public, we’re just looking to make use of our equipment the best as possible,” said Ken Krcel, Public Works and Environmental Services director.
While the city moved to automated waste collection trucks over 10 years ago, some areas such as the Business Improvement Area (BIA) and Schumacher still have their garbage picked up manually. The city's waste/recycling fleet only has equipment and personnel for the automated collection, according to the staff report.
The city's environmental services department says some of the 797 units still being manually collected can gradually be transitioned to the automated system if the city's garbage trucks focus on high-density areas.
That means having contractors service the rural areas that get their pick up on Wednesday and Thursday, said Krcel.
“Although the contractor’s cost for rurals is slightly more expensive than what we can do internally, we feel it’s best that we utilize our trucks in town where we get the most return on investment for them. When they have shorter runs and are able to stay in town they’re able to help out their coworkers ... if one goes down or if they’re falling behind. Whereas when they’re out in the rural sections they’re basically lost for the day,” he said.
Having lived in the same house for over 20 years, Coun. Bill Gvozdanovic said the last year was unusual for the number of service disruptions for garbage pickup.
"To me, one or two times OK fine, but the amount of times it happened kinda concerns me,” he said.
In 2022, there were 21 disruption notices for garbage pickup. Eleven of those were for rural collections, according to the staff report.
In 2021, the city paid out $637,975 for waste and recycling contractor costs. It rose to $672,508 in 2022.
“Co-collection trucks that we use for garbage pickup, they’re a very high maintenance piece of equipment and most organizations have life expectancies on these trucks for between five and seven years,” said Krcel.
Right now, the city's fleet includes two trucks that will be 13 years old this year, one's going on nine years and another will be eight, he said.
The city received two new trucks in 2022, but those took almost two years to come in due to factors such as parts availability.
Another garbage truck is included in the 2023 budget, though that process has not started yet. Krcel expects it will take 12-18 months to get a truck, which is the same for most pieces of equipment being ordered.
Depending on the model of the truck, the cost of ranges from $380,000 to $560,000.
“They’ve gone up significantly since we started the program in 2010, but I can say that’s the same with all pieces of equipment,” said Krcel.
The contract with E360 is for one year. Because it's the first time formalizing the agreement, Krcel didn't want to lock the city into a multi-year contract. If it's successful, a multi-year contract will be tendered next year.
