Let's Talk Trash

I wound up at a public consultation tonight for the "Let's Talk Trash: Waste Plan Regina" program. I thought this would be a presentation of some kind followed by questions. Nothing too strenuous. Thought I could spin it into 200 words of News Brief for the next issue.

But no.

What I was at was a full-on public consultation where we were all broken up into groups and consulted -- ie., asked to put together what we thought should be included in three waste management options that could be presented to the public.

It was an instructive night.

But first, for the record, I'm putting this on the blog but I haven't really done due journalistic diligence on anything I'm writing here. I haven't interviewed the consultants who ran this. I haven't interviewed anyone from the city. These are my impressions based on my experiences as a participant.

So, without getting into too much detail, I have to say, I felt the outcome was pretty much rigged. The consultants had an idea of what shape they wanted the three options to take and we didn't really have a lot of room to modify them. They went so far as to have suggested answers already checkmarked into many of the response boxes on our worksheets.

And I wasn't the only person in the room who was having a problem with the process. I heard more than a few people complain that the exercise seemed pointless.

For example, by the end of the evening, it was clear that there was near-unanimous agreement in the room that a mandatory curbside recycling program should be included as a "Basic" option. (We were supposed to come up with a "Basic," an "Enhanced," and a "Comprehensive" option.) One of the consultants informed us this was not something we should do, that the "Basic" option should reflect the current level of waste-management service with a couple enhancements -- curbside recycling not being one of them. The room persisted, asking why should the current level of crummy waste removal be presented as an option to the public? Several people pointed out that if curbside recycling is a basic service in most municipalities in Canada, why are we being asked to call it an "enhanced" service here?

In the end, they agreed to note the room's strong feelings that curbside recycling should be listed as a basic option but couldn't guarantee that it would wind up looking that way in the final report. The city might instruct them to do something different.

You see where I'm going with this? Basically, if the report comes out and presents to Reginans three choices of trash removal service and the "basic" option doesn't include curbside recycling, that part of the report was written despite serious objections during public consultation.

Other disturbing things that came up.... There was a great deal of confusion over how much capacity there is in our landfill and how much it will cost us in the next few years to expand it. The consultants claimed we'd decades of capacity so don't worry about that. Someone from the city and an environmental consultant in one of the groups noted that such a claim is premature and based on a massive expenditure (in the 10s of millions) in the next three years.

Also, I have to wonder how serious the city was about making this a truly public consultation. The city's website never listed the date, time or location for this event. Everyone I spoke to only knew it was going on because they just so happened to phone up the city to ask about trash removal or because they'd maneuvered through the city's labyrinthine "Let's Talk Trash" website and had signed up for email updates.

One thing I should note about the people who were in attendance tonight. Everyone -- from the earnest environmentalist to the pro-business, anti-union guy -- were extremely progressive where trash is concerned. That was heartening.

My favourite quote of the night: "The landfill is the first Regina landmark you see coming into the city. Before the two glass towers, before anything, you see the landfill. It's a disgrace."