The city will be trying out a program allowing residents to pay for having excess household garbage picked up at the curb.
During Monday night's meeting, city council directed staff to bring back a bylaw that would charge residents a $3 fee for each extra bag left for pick up.
As outlined in a report from park and solid waste services manager Flavio Viola, the department sees the program working by residents purchasing brightly coloured stickers at city hall to attach to garbage bags.
Those bags - a maximum of 20 kilograms - would be set out beside the regular garbage cans. After the automated truck dumps the full container, the driver would get out of the truck, put the extra garbage into the can and dump the automated cart a second time.
The program - which will be done on a year-long trial basis - is a result of an opportunity in the core services review final report.
KPMG estimated the practice could bring in anywhere between $230,000 to $460,000 in additional revenue.
Coun. Brian Skakun wondered how much this process would slow down collection.
"It will slow down production," affirmed Viola. "The more bags there are, the more the operator has to get out of the truck."
Cities that already have an excess garbage fee in place such as Kamloops, New Westminster and North Vancouver have a two-bag limit.
"I think we'll have this happen three times a year - spring, fall and then Christmas time," said Coun. Frank Everitt. "The rest of the time it will be business as usual. We won't have a rash of further injuries or a whole bunch of money either. It's way for people to deal with excess garbage."
Since introducing the automated garbage collection service in 2004, there have been no repetitive strain injuries in the solid waste division, Viola wrote in his report. "Implementing the extra bag collection would increase the chances of repetitive strain injuries to staff... Animal/wildlife getting into the bags would also be a concern."
