Top Ten

Friday, 24 January 2014 at 06:00

Oxford County ranked 6th in Province and 1st in rural regional for waste diversion

Oxford County has cracked the top ten in the province when it comes to residential waste diversion.

Waste Diversion Ontario released their 2012 report Wednesday putting Oxford County at number 6 in the province.

Director of Public Works, Rob Walton says with Oxford's residential diversion rate at 58 percent, it put them in first place in the rural regional category.

"I think it shows the strength of the programs we are running and the improvement that we have made over the last few years and there's probably a couple of programs that have led to that improvement which are our Construction Demolition Waste Program which is around seven thousand tonnes a year diversion and our Composting Program which is around nine thousand tonnes a year."

Walton says the County is currently two thirds through their Integrated Waste Management Plan which includes information gathered through public interaction, internet surveys and advertising.

"Where we think we need to go to improve that standing and put out our cost effective programs and that will all lead to our next contract for garbage and recycling in 2014 for implementation in 2015 so in February the next step of that will hit council."

Walton says once the report is released, there will be other questions asked of the public about some of the programs the County is thinking of introducing to improve efficiencies and improve their waste diversion standings.

He says the Waste Diversion Ontario report deals strictly with waste diversion.

"We are also quite proud of the efficiencies and the costings of our programs and there will be further reporting on that by WDO, it isn't out yet. As we go forward with Integrated Waste Management Plan we are going to be talking about how we look forward to making our programs more efficient because it isn't just all about the diversion, it's about your impact on your carbon footprint too."

Walton says there are programs you could run that would improve the diversion but wouldn't be very effective from a carbon foot print point of view.