Litter In District 13, HRM and C&D Facilities

Safe, clean, healthy, and thriving. Those are the values I committed to District 13 when I campaigned, and I continue to champion those values on council. The litter problems in our district and across the municipality continue to be a major problem, and I am doing everything I can do to create change. To give myself as much access to decision makers as possible, I've joined the Regional Chairs of Solid Waste, and became a board member of Divert NS and the Halifax Waste Resource Society to compliment my positions on Regional Council and the Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee.

I met with staff in HRM to discuss the ongoing litter problems, where I was given a presentation of HRM's Litter Management Strategy (copy of the presentation here).  In that presentation, I learned that the two main bylaws governing litter and waste in HRM are L-200, RESPECTING LICENSING OF CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION MATERIALS RECYCLING AND DISPOSAL OPERATIONS, and S-600, SOLID WASTE RESOURCE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL. 

As District 13 contains a C&D facility in Goodwood, bylaw L-200 can have a profound impact on the cleanliness and safety of Prospect Rd. I have always maintained that litter attracts litter, and that the major contributor of roadside litter is commercial and industrial debris flying off of trucks going to or returning from the C&D facility. As a long-time Prospect resident, I've had countless conversations with residents about this - almost everyone I know has had a rusty nail in their tire, or a chipped windshield from flying debris, or had to swerve to miss garbage on the road.  As a municipality, I find our tolerance for litter shockingly bad, but our lack of bylaw regulation and enforcement around transport of commercial and industrial waste inexcusable. 

At the next Environment and Sustainability Committee, we will be reviewing Amendments to By-Law L-200 Respecting Licensing of Construction and Demolition (C&D) Recycling and Disposal Operations. There are improvements made, but I think more should be done. I look forward to bringing further debate and change to this bylaw. Goodwood, the Prospect Communities, and HRM as a whole simply demands better. To that end, I have engaged PROBE (Prospect Road Organization for a Better Environment) to review these bylaw changes as well, where together, we can create meaningful and positive change. 

DIvert NS has also done investigation, and has released Divert NS Litter Audit Report and Divert NS Litter Behavior Findings.