Spring Clean-Up is cancelled again this year due to COVID-19, but the city is implementing a new large item pick-up program in its place.
Council voted unanimously to implement the new program in a closed meeting on Jan. 11.
The new program, set to begin in March, will allow all residences that receive curbside garbage collection to dispose of up to four large household items per year via curbside pick-up. Residents would need to contact Delta’s collection contractor, Remple Disposal, to schedule a time for collection, and could choose to dispose of all four items at once or at up to four separate times throughout the year.
According to a staff report released as part of the agenda for the regular council meeting on Monday (Feb. 8), Delta’s contract with Remple Disposal provides the option to implement a large item pick-up program as an alternative to Spring Clean-Up. The new program will cost approximately $150,000 more per year than Spring Clean-Up, which has been accounted for in the city’s proposed 2021 solid waste budget.
“Some operational cost savings in 2021 would likely be recognized, as illegal dumping incidents and costs typically spike around Spring Clean-Up each year,” the report notes.
The report says six other municipalities in the region offer large item pick-up programs, including Surrey and Coquitlam, both of which transitioned from spring clean-up programs over a decade ago. Some of the large item programs were temporarily suspended during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, but all had resumed by summer 2020.
Household items accepted as part of Delta’s large item pick-up program will be the same as Spring Clean-Up — bulky household items, furniture and scrap metal items — and all items that can be recycled will be. A detailed list of accepted items will be posted soon to delta.ca/services/garbage-recycling/large-item-pick-up.
Mattresses and box springs — which have not been included as part of Spring Clean-Up since the region banned them from being disposed of as garbage in 2012 — will now be accepted and taken to the Vancouver Landfill for recycling at no cost.
The new Large Item Pick-Up Program is not scheduled to continue after 2021, however staff will be evaluating and reviewing the community’s feedback on the program and will report back to council later this year.
Delta’s annual Spring Clean-Up began in the early 1960s and is the only one remaining in Metro Vancouver. The popular program allows residents to place up to a pickup truck-size load of extra garbage and scrap metal at curbside for collection once a year.
Spring Clean-Up 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading many residents to ask the city for an alternative program to assist with the collection of large items.
SEE ALSO: Barrels of fuel to children’s toys: B.C. shoreline cleanup nets 127 tonnes of marine debris
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