Dump Amnesty Load is cheap public relations

Feb 25, 2015

The dump amnesty load and the cost of maintaining the various Township Halls are budget deliberation footballs every year in Central Frontenac. Taxpayers in Central Frontenac see little enough justification for their property tax bill every year. It should be considered basic common sense to throw the people a bone once-in-a-while even if it's just a free load of landfill once a year that they can use at their own discretion.

I was an inaugural member of the Central Frontenac Waste Management Committee from May, 2007 - March 2011. In that time the ‘dump amnesty load programme’ was debated several times. One such debate led to a report that I did for the Committee in 2010, which was forwarded to the Council of the day, in which I showed that while none of our neighbouring Townships specifically offer a dump amnesty load they arguably have much better incentive/reward programmes for their residents: 1) They all have a clear bag requirement with owner affixed bag tag. 2) Tay Valley Township offers a free bag of landfill for an equal sized container of recyclables PLUS 40 free bag tags every year. 3) South Frontenac Township provides curbside pickup PLUS 50 free bag tags per year. 4) North Frontenac has a swap system - one free bag of landfill for an equal sized container of recyclables, and if the recyclables exceed the amount of landfill then a tag is issued to be used on a subsequent bag of land fill. Tags can be combined for use on a large item.

Central Frontenac Township Council might not be willing to adopt a swap system or annual free bag allotment (which we used to have both before and after amalgamation) but judging by reported usage, and if it’s all about bean counting, the amnesty load is still much less expensive public relations than the more elaborate rewards/incentives that the other townships are offering. It’s hard not to observe that our neighbouring townships seem much more interested in encouraging their residents rather than punishing them.

Patrick Maloney