New recycling contract for city: rates rising, products removed

The City of Saskatoon announced a new eight-year, $46 million contract for recycling Thursday and changes are coming that will affect your utility bills and what products you can recycle.

Utility rates will be on the rise over the next two years for both curbside and multi-use residential recycling. In 2020, the proposed change of $7.38 per month for curbside pickup will take effect January 1, 2020.  That’s a jump of $1.72 from 2019.

In 2021, the rates will be hiked to $7.47 per month.

Russ Munro, the city’s director of water & waste, said throughout the duration of the eight year deal, the jump from 2019 of $1.72 won’t be as large year over year moving forward.

“We don’t anticipate this large of a jump throughout the contract, it should be linked to more of an inflationary increase throughout.”

Multi-use residential recycling is also increasing from $3.11 per month in 2019 to $3.71 next year and then to $3.86 per month in 2021.

Additionally, black plastics such as take-out containers and coffee lids will not be accepted come January 1, 2020 in city recycling bins, along with paper coffee cups.

Munro said the reasoning behind that is not having a market for materials.

“There isn’t anybody willing to take them, so there’s no way to recycle them. When you go to recycle something, there has to be someone willing to either take that material on, and reprocess that and reuse it, or willing to use it in (and) use it again in some fashion.”

The contract takes effect on January 1, 2020 and will continue through 2027.

City Council has yet to approve the contract and changes to the recycling program.

(Editor’s note: this is an amended version of the story containing the correct numbers.)