Bulk loads of yard and garden waste disposed at Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) landfills, including the Golden landfill, will now be charged a tipping fee, effective March 1.
People dumping yard and garden waste will now be charged $80/tonne for waste brought to the landfill in large vehicles or trailers. Large vehicles/trailers are defined as anything with two or more rear axles.
Free disposal of yard waste will remain in place for smaller vehicles or trailers with a single axle, which includes cars, SUVs, pick up trucks and single axle trailers.
According to the CSRD, the purpose of this fee change is to standardize disposal rates for larger commercial type operations doing land clearing type activities.
As part of these changes, the current tipping fee of $160/tonne for land-clearing waste will be reduced to $80/tonne in order to simplify the load assessments for landfill workers by standardizing cost.
In addition, CSRD transfer stations will no longer be accepting load of yard waste from tandem-axle vehicles, including the Parson location.
Large vehicles will have to go to a CSRD landfill for disposal. The CSRD says that this will ensure there will be available space for residents to drop off their yard waste at transfer stations.
In January 2018, the CSRD adopted the free yard waste disposal program, which was designed to give residents access to an environmentally-friendly, economical solution to yard-waste disposal of items like leaves, grass clippings and branches. This has helped reduce open burning and illegal dumping of this type of waste.
Since this change, however, an increasing number of individuals and commercial businesses are bringing in large loads of land-clearing waste using heavy equipment. The large loads are overwhelming the space at transfer stations. This is also causing problems with composting, as much of the waste can not be processed properly due to the amount of stumps, rocks and soil in the loads.
