Peterborough City Hall to reduce single-use plastics at wastewater treatment plant – Peterborough | Globalnews.ca

Peterborough City Council, sitting as a general committee on July 4, endorsed plans to phase in an eventual ban of single-use plastics at city-owned locations, including City Hall and a wastewater treatment plant.

This includes items such as shopping bags, cutlery and drinking straws.

“The major products we are targeting are plastic straws. You can ditch them and move on to reusable straws. easy to do. Another example is stir sticks. The perfect example of a substitute (uncooked) is a piece of spaghetti. Use it to stir your coffee,” said City West Diversion Manager Dave Douglas.

“Another product: coffee mugs. Take a mug, use a reusable mug. Water bottles. Tap water is fantastic, use city water and use a reusable water bottle.”

The recommended strategy will also see the city begin building a City of Peterborough – Zero Waste event planning guide, develop and implement an enhanced public awareness campaign including updated promotional and educational signage for parks, recreational facilities and city-owned public spaces Do it. Create a temporary, 24-month contract position to assist in the design and implementation of locations, and single-use plastic reduction strategy recommendations.

The proposed contract is estimated to cost around $100,000, which will be funded through a reserve.

“It (the strategy) was one of my election platforms and promises to the constituents of Peterborough in 2018, so I’m glad the report is with us tonight,” Conn. Gary Baldwin, who chairs the city’s waste management portfolio, told a virtual general committee meeting on Monday.

Baldwin and a group of citizens formed a working group in 2019 to look at ways to reduce single-use plastics in the city.

A few weeks ago, the federal government announced that it would ban the manufacture of certain single-use plastic items effective January 1, while other prohibitions with the goal of achieving zero plastic waste by 2025 would not go into effect until 2025.

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“What we’re going to find out is just banning it, which means less will be bought and incorporated into our community, which will eventually end up in our trash or blue box streams,” Douglas said.

Douglas tells Global News Peterborough that plastics make up about eight to nine percent of the city’s household waste.

He says a lot of it is recyclable but some of it comes through the sorting system.

“Our challenge in our recycling facility, and we have state-of-the-art technology, is a lot of these small items going through sorting lines, and a lot of it is automated, and falling in and out as residue. The end,” he said.

“You won’t see a straw go through the system and be picked up or a stir stick is picked up by the optic eye, so these items are challenging for us.”

The diversion rate of the city is 52 per cent.

Douglas says that when the city adds organics in 2023, it will add 20 percentage points to bring it over 70 percent.

“When we target these recyclables that end up in the waste stream, we’re estimating that we can turn 75 and eventually 80 percent into the quest for zero waste,” Douglas said.

Douglas said a clear bag trash program would be the “final silver bullet” in the city’s quest for a higher diversion rate and hopes to be rolled out in the future.

The single-use plastic reduction strategy will need final approval at an upcoming council meeting.