North Cowichan council has decided to purchase 20,650 garbage and organic carts, at a cost of almost $1 million, as the municipality continues to move forward with its plans to transition to automated-garbage collection by March, 2025.
Council made the decision to award the $978,114 contract to IPL North America Inc, as recommended by staff, at its meeting on July 17 after considering two other higher bids because, as well as being cheaper, IPL also met the majority of the specifications in the request-for-proposals process when compared with the other bidders.
In February, staff requested residents consider garbage and organics cart sizes for the new automated collection program and advise if they would like carts larger than the 80-litre default.
The number of carts required based on resident requests is 16,200 80 litre carts; 2,645 120 litre; and 1,805 240 litre, for a total of 20,650 carts for the approximately 10,000 homes in North Cowichan.
The previous council decided to begin moving forward with the implementation of automated garbage pick up after a survey was completed by more than 2,300 residents, with 66 per cent indicating they are in favour of an automated garbage pick-up system, which would allow the truck drivers to collect the garbage bins from inside the cab using a fully automated arm that tips into the truck hopper.
Residents in favour identified workers’ safety, larger carts, and better mobility as their justification.
In May, 2023, council authorized the purchase of three new automated-garbage trucks and an electric-garbage truck for more than $2.6 million.
When delivered, the trucks will replace the municipality’s four aging manual garbage trucks that are currently being used for the curb-side collection of residential garbage and organics in North Cowichan.
As part of the process to introduce automated garbage pick up and to keep the costs of the transition down as much as possible for taxpayers, council decided last year to authorize the one-time grant of $7,686,000 North Cowichan received under the Growing Communities Grant Fund to help pay for almost $2 million of the capital costs of the new automated system, and reduce the annual solid-waste collection fee from $183 to $153 per household each year.
Council also decided at its meeting on July 17 to direct staff to negotiate with Toter LLC to supply North Cowichan with approximately 500 bear-resistant carts that will be 120 and 240 litre carts.
The cost for the 120 and 240-litre bear-resistant carts is between $200 to $300 each.
As a result, residents who request a bear-resistant cart will have an increased annual collection fee of $30 and $40 for the 120 and 240 litre carts, respectively.
Coun. Chris Istace said he’s glad that homeowners will have the option of choosing bear-resistant carts, even though, based on data from Wildsafe BC, bear and wildlife issues associated with solid-waste collection in North Cowichan are not significant.
“I think that’s because people have been good home owners and are bear aware and bear smart,” he said.
Coun. Bruce Findlay said he was against the purchase of the new garbage trucks and he’s also opposed to buying the new carts.
“So while I appreciate that we have to make a decisions today because of a prior decision that was made, I’m voting against this because I’m against the entire process of spending $4 million on garbage,” he said.
Mayor Rob Douglas noted that the carts from the other two companies that made bids would have been thicker, and the staff report said it’s anticipated that approximately 400 carts from IPL are expected to have to be replaced per year.
He asked staff if they did any analysis on whether carts with thicker walls would, perhaps, be cheaper in the long run.
“There might be a business case for purchasing those with higher upfront costs if there were lower replacement costs year by year,” Douglas said.
Shawn Cator, North Cowichan's director of operations, said one of IPL’s competitive advantages is to make carts thinner so they make their bids a little cheaper.
“As well, we looked at other municipalities that are using these carts and there were no significant issues with them in regards to breakage,” he said.
Council voted to purchase the carts, with Findlay and Coun. Tek Manhas opposed.
