Nelson City Council plans to raise residential waste collection fees for 2025 from $125 to $150 per year.
These fees cover the collection of garbage, recycling and organic waste.
The city's chief financial officer Chris Jury told council that the fee increases will be used to fund the extension into 2025 of the FoodCycler program, to modernize the waste collection fleet, to address inflation, and to continue to build a financial reserve for future capital costs.
Jury told council that inflation – the increased cost of labour, equipment, materials, and tipping fees at the transfer station – accounts for about 60 per cent of the increases.
Council also decided to increase the water rate by seven per cent and its wastewater fee by 6.5 per cent. These increases include capital levies to contribute to the replacement of the $13 million Five Mile Creek pipeline and the $90-120 million upgrades to the aging sewage treatment plant. The city has also been building reserves for these projects over the past decade.
The waste collection, water, and waste water fees are charged to households on a bill separate from property taxes. Together, this year's increases will amount to $100 per household.
Garbage trucks
The city's manager of community planning, climate and infrastructure Chris Johnson said Nelson is one of the few municipalities that uses a truck with two workers manually throwing garbage into the truck, unlike many communities that have automated arms that pick up the waste.
He said some of Nelson's trucks will need replacing and the city has to decide if a more modern, automated system would work on Nelson's steep, narrow streets and alleys, especially in deep snow.
Johnson said it is possible that the city will remain with the current pick-up system but with new vehicles. This also needs to be researched because of advancing technology.
"Where we are now is that our crews are going flat out during garbage weeks," he said, "so much so that every day (we ask) if we need to have some overtime to collect it all."
He said staying with the manual approach would require more staff, and that with biweekly pick-up, workers on alternate weeks are operating with field crews in public works, parks and snow clearing.
