The City of Weyburn has released the results of their 2010 Waste Reduction Survey. The results were "disappointing" according to City Councillor and Environmental Committee chair Nancy Styles, due to the fact that only 198 of the 3,400 surveys were filled-out and returned. The surveys were sent out with last month's City utility bills.
"We really can't make any kind of conclusions with only two percent of the populations input," said Styles.
The respondents of the survey overall would like to divert more waste from the landfill each year than the previous year and reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill from each household.
The top three options that respondents would consider implementing were spring and fall curb-side collection of yard waste, curb-side collection of recyclables and permanent household hazardous waste depot for year-round drop offs.
As for household hazardous waste days, 55 percent indicated that they would like to maintain the current two days per year service while 38 percent responded that they would like to see an increase to four times per year. Seven percent did not respond.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents were in favour of implementing a refuse bag limit in order to reduce the amount of residential waste going to the landfill, while 32 percent were against imposing a limit.
In response to payment for services provided to add more options to reduce waste going to the landfill, 34 percent responded that they would not be willing to pay an additional fee on a monthly basis, 46 percent would be willing to pay $1 to $5 per month, 18 percent would be willing to pay $5 to $10, and two percent indicated they would pay $11 to $20 per month for additional services.
The general response from the survey indicated that residents did not mind paying more on a monthly basis if the City offered more services to recycle and reduce waste. Most respondents claimed to already recycle newspaper, office paper, cardboard, plastic milk jugs, tin cans, paint, yard waste, compostable food wastes and tires.
Styles said that the City may consider sending out the surveys again in an attempt to receive more responses.
