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Leiper said he would have been willing to accept a regime that allows compostable plastic bags, but not any old plastic bag. There’s no proof linking plastic bags to increased green bin use, he said.

“We didn’t see the evidence today that it would,” Leiper said after the committee meeting. “Let’s hope that staff aren’t going to be too optimistic about participation again.”

A consultant helped staff make the projections, but the consultant’s report hasn’t yet been released publicly. A business case has also not been released.

The city has already been burned for being too optimistic on the green bin program, as the 2014 audit on the Orgaworld contract revealed. Auditor general Ken Hughes discovered a galling lack of evidence to support the volume of organic waste committed to Orgaworld in the 20-year contract.

Hughes looked at the latest staff analysis to make sure they did their homework this time around and is satisfied with the facts that support the revised deal.

The auditor highlighted one unfortunate, and unalterable, reality under the contract: the city pays more per tonne to process leaf and yard waste at Orgaworld compared to unloading the material in its own composting heaps at the municipal dump.

Still, the city is trying to eliminate throwaway costs to Orgaworld under the current deal. As part of the revised contract, the city’s “put or pay” threshold would be reduced from 80,000 tonnes annually to 75,000 tonnes. The city has never sent Orgaworld 80,000 tonnes since the beginning of the contract in 2010 but pays for that volume of organics.