Greater Sudbury could save reap significant savings and extend the life of its landfill if garbage pickup was reduced to twice per month, argues the city’s auditor general.

"Opportunities exist to reduce annual waste-collection costs by over $2.5 million and encourage diversion by reducing the frequency and limits of garbage collected from households," writes Brian Bigger in a report that will come before the audit committee on Tuesday.

At present, Sudburians enjoy weekly pickup of trash, recyclables and organics, and the service is contracted out on a cost-per-stop basis, the auditor notes. If garbage collection was scaled back to every other week, about $2 million — 1% of the municipal tax levy — would remain in city coffers, while a further $5 million could be saved through other waste-collection efficiencies.

Many other cities — including Ottawa, Toronto, Guelph and Barrie — have moved to bimonthly trash collection, the report points out, and some limit residents to two bags of garbage per pickup, as opposed to the three per household that Sudbury permits.

The idea behind cutting back on garbage collection isn’t only to spare the city costs, but also to persuade more residents to recycle and compost. In Bigger’s scenario, both blue bins and green bins could still be placed on the curb each week.

"Such a strategy encourages waste diversion, resulting in increased life of landfills," reads the report.

The city’s Solid Waste Advisory Panel has periodically discussed reducing the weekly residential garbage limit to two bags and cutting the number of pickup days in half, Bigger says, but the ideas haven’t gained traction.

A two-bag limit was rejected by council in 2011, not so much because councillors questioned the efficacy of the proposal as they feared it would be unpopular.

Many residents, however, are already producing less waste. Chantal Mathieu, the city’s environmental services co-ordinator, told councillors in 2011 that 84% of Sudbury households generate just two bags or less per week, and those amounts could be reduced further if recycling and composting were more rigorously practised.

A quarter of the material in the average garbage bag could be composted, pointed out Mathieu, and 13% could be put in a blue bin. In other words, more than a third of the stuff in the typical bag doesn’t have to be there.

Sudburians have been particularly slow to get on board with organics disposal. An audit undertaken in the Valley/Garson/Wanup area this spring found while 75% of households were blue-bin users, just 20% used green bins.

The low rate of participation in recycling and, especially, composting penalizes those who are more vigilant about sorting their garbage — since the cost of the collection service is borne by all taxpayers — and can work to the advantage of contractors, Bigger argues.

"Despite this low utilization of blue and green bin(s), contractors are being paid at 100% of the dwellings serviced in accordance with the collection contracts," the auditor writes.

Bigger notes the city has set a target of diverting 65% of its waste. Between 2004 and 2013, diversion of residential garbage climbed from a mere 17% to 45%, largely due to recycling, but much more could be done to improve the waste stream, reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and prevent future costs, he argues.

"The estimated replacement cost of landfill assets exceeds $20 million," writes the auditor. "Increased diversion of garbage extends landfill life and defers replacement expenditures."

jim.moodie@sunmedia.ca