What they're thinking

Posted by Magda
72% of Guelph residents surveyed by city staff support sending our trash to an incinerator out of the city.
15% were opposed.

That's according to responses to almost 800 surveys the city collected at its waste management master plan open houses.

That's according to a telephone survey of 400 random residents conducted by Oraclepoll Research this spring.

Some other results from the surveys:

• 70% wanted a ban on plastic bags in the city.
• 68% said the city should divert more than 60% of its trash from landfill
• About 90% said they supported better recycling and composting in apartment buildings, the starting of a reuse centre, and accepting more materials in the blue bag
• 71% wanted more frequent curbside yard waste collection.
• 63% wanted a limit on the number of clear bags you could put out.
• 54% wanted a pay-as-you-throw system, meaning you'd pay for every bag you toss.

You can check out the survey results here.

Comments

[Harry Tidge]

And what did the remaining 12% say?
I agree that we should put an end to the use of plastic bags including the blue, green and clear bags we use to put out residential week each week. They should be replaced with a blue box, a green box and a clear box. Fat Chance!
Once again this is testimony to the City's ability to "Talk the Talk" but when it comes to "Walk the Talk" City staff gets a failing grade.
As to the bag fee, don't even go there. Remember the famed 2 mil Hospital tax that was to disappear once the City raised the promised amount? Well once the target was met, and guess what, the 2 mill subscription NEVER came off the tax bill, it just morphed into other endeavors.
The same will happen, the bag tax will be charged and we will end up paying TWICE to remove our garbage ONCE. I imagine that the current waste management taxes will then be morphed into payments to those cry-baby developers who want us to pay for their (poor) business decisions of buying contaminated properties. You certainly will not see the money go into frequent large item pickups and monthly yard waste pickup.
Thats the way I see it.

Harry

[Magda]

Hi Harry,
What are you referring to when you ask about the remaining 12%?

[Kevin Ames]

There is no way more than 50% of the respondents of a properly done poll would say that they want to be charged per bag and that they want a limit on the number of bags they put out. This survey must have been heavily weighted with respondents with no children. The more people in a household the more garbage you produce.

[Magda]

Just for clarification, this isn't a poll -- it's a survey done of people who attended the waste management master plan open house.

[Magda]

Ummm... please indulge me as I clarify the clarification. It was a random survey, of 400 residents, conducted over hte phone by Oraclepoll Research.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Harry Tidge]

Magda:
Sorry, the number should have been 13% Your opening Para has 75% and 12% which equals 87%. Did the remainder (13%) have any opinion at all? If so - What, or did they just refuse to participate in which case the valid responses drop from 400 to approx 350.
And 75% in support of incineration is interesting. How was the question posed? Do you support incineration, or do you support incineration to produce energy. I suspect it was the latter.
I am a bit surprised by the magnitude of the support for incineration, maybe it is a rejection of the single-minded point of view of the eco-phobic?

Harry

[Magda]

Oh, I see. It's actually 72% pro incineration, 15% against, and 13% don't know or are unusure.
The question was this: "Currently, residual waste is shipped to a landfill outside of Guelph. Would you support shipping residual waste to an energy-from-waste facility outside of Guelph?"

[Rose Aaliyah]

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with a grade three student at St. Francis. I asked him how he felt about recycling and if his school made enough effort to go green. He said not at all.
By the end of the conversation it seemed to me like the school was having more fire drills than talks about recycling and waste management. Not to say that St. Francis is a bad school or that fires don't happen - but we waste every day and if the schools paid equal attention to educating the students about recycling and environmental issues, then perhaps the next generation would carry the torch sooner?
I don't know - this is just a thought.

[Ken Spira]

I attended the Guelph Solid Waste Management Master Plan Open House at the Cutten Club on February 21, 2008 with an open mind, many questions and what I thought were well thought out and researched common sense suggestions on how to deal with our waste. What I found was a very disappointing dog and pony show that was obviously put on to satisfy criteria requiring a public component rather than to truly get the public involved. There was no formal agenda, no formal Q&A period whereby attendee’s questions would be recorded and responded to. The lack of knowledge by those with name tags unfortunately gave me reason to believe that the open house was a staged performance to satisfy due diligence in the process. My disappointment continued as I left the open house with an 11 question, Public Open House Exit Questionnaire that had very few real questions that I felt would contribute to the master plan process The recent Waste Management Survey all of a sudden has 94 questions consisting of only 3 that were asked at the master plan open house. I find it puzzling that staff could only come up with 11 questions for the open house but shortly after, gave oraclepole Research 94 questions and no doubt another handful of taxpayers money to ask questions that should have been asked at the open house in the first place. Is this survey just another piece of the puzzling political agenda surrounding our waste management?