At Monday night’s Elliot Lake Council meeting, Councillors voted to make wording changes to the city’s Solid Waste By-law. Committee chair Tammy VanRoon explained to her fellow councillors some points of clarification which have been added to the By-law. They centre mainly on safety and health concerns.
She noted some residents continue to take their trash containers to the curb the night before pickup day. That is now a “no-no.” Changes to the By-law stress that no garbage will be allowed to be placed curbside prior to 6:00 a.m. on garbage day. It’s mainly due due to concern about animals getting into garbage containers if they have easy access for longer periods of time.
In the same vein, homeowners and residents are being reminded that all garbage must be bagged inside vinyl or metal containers with tight fastenable lids. There’s also a reminder that nobody should accumulate garbage over more than a week on their property. It needs to be picked up and disposed of once a week.
Human and animal waste disposal also came in for another look. The best solution for that is disposal in the toilet. But as Councillor Norman Mann noted, the last thing that Council wants to do is discourage residents from stooping and scooping after their pets in neighbourhoods.
When toilet waste disposal isn’t possible, the city wants to make sure it’s done right. The proper procedure is to wrap pet waste in absorbent paper and then bag it in plastic before it goes into the garbage. The maximum volume of pet or other biological waste allowed in the trash is 10 percent of everything that goes out weekly. Containers that contain mainly pet waste which tends to be too heavy and messy for the contractors to handle properly will not be accepted.