The City of Terrace is investing close to half-a-million dollars in a new curbside collection truck that will result in changes to yard waste pick up services in the future.
Currently, the city’s collection fleet is made up of two old, manual collection trucks, and two LaBrie Expert T trucks with automated pickup arms purchased in 2016.
The older trucks are 18 and 21-years-old, used only for manual yard waste collection on Mondays and as backup units for other collection if necessary.
To avoid ongoing and excessive maintenance costs on the old trucks, the city will buy a third LaBrie truck with automatic arm, using $460,000 from its Northern Capital and Planning Grant funds and put the manual trucks up for auction.
The purchase will downsize the fleet from four trucks to three, but result in savings through increased vehicle lifespan, fewer service interruptions and added flexibility because all the trucks will be the same.
But with fewer trucks at work, weekly yard waste collection could end.
“We have to move to automate it, I think it’s just the right way to go, I am a little concerned about the cons of volume of pickup but I think we’ll be able to find a way to mitigate that somehow or come up with a reasonable solution,” said Coun. Sean Bujtas at a Nov. 23 council meeting.
The new truck could take up to a year to be delivered, so in the meantime the city will be launching public consultation in the form of a survey to find out what residents want and need when it comes to yard waste pickup.
Ben Reinbolt, public works manager, suggested some ideas at the council meeting that could appear in the survey.
“A few options that are already being considered are increasing the size of green organics bins to accommodate yard waste, an additional fourth can for yard waste at the choice of each resident, a no cost yard waste drop off location within city limits, and the reimplementation of spring-fall cleanups,” he said.
Terrace currently offers curbside collection of garbage, recycling, organics and yard waste, but yard waste is the only stream still collected manually.
READ MORE: RDKS switching to bag-free recycling Starting Nov. 29