Holyrood mayor has questions about changes to garbage collection
By Craig Westcott
December 29 2023
A letter from the Eastern Region Service Board to all the residents in its region about the switchover to clear plastic bags has drawn a little fire from Holyrood Mayor Gary Goobie.
“I’m not going to read it (aloud) in detail, because it has been sent out to all residents,” Goobie told his fellow councillors at their regular monthly meeting just before Christmas. “But what I will say on your behalf is there are changes being made with the Eastern Regional Services Board this year that will have a direct impact on residents of Holyrood because some of the ways that they are going to be doing things will change. Yes, there are questions being asked (as to) why things are being done in a certain way, and I’ll be honest, there are some things being implemented which I simply can’t figure out myself.”
Goobie said he is hoping to speak with the board’s chairman, Steve Tessier, in the coming days.
“He’s a great guy to deal with,” the mayor noted. “So maybe some of the questions that we have, there will be logic behind that decision. For one (thing) for example, a lot of people are not pleased, but it’s like everything, when you don’t understand the true picture and why things are being done, then things get called into question. For example, people have been asking, starting January 1, you have to put all your household garbage in clear garbage bags. But then you’re allowed one bag of any colour, which could be black, it’s a privacy bag. But what I don’t get is that you’ve got to take that privacy bag and put that in the clear bag. So, we’re talking reducing, reusing and recycling, but we’re taking a private bag and putting it in another bag, the clear bag. That part I don’t get. My hope is Mr. Tessier can give me an answer on that.”
Goobie said he is very disappointed the annual bulk garbage collections are being reduced to one per year. “And you have to phone and make an appointment to have that picked up,” he added. “So, it’s not like we set a certain date for the bulk cleanup in our community… Now you have to make an appointment. I know there are going to be residents who are disappointed, I’m disappointed, because heaven knows, we’re paying enough for waste management right now, and I think that Holyrood has been doing quite a tremendous job in our recycling efforts. All you have to do is go around on recycling days and you can see lots and lots and lots of recycling bags. So, we have been doing our part, but the price don’t seem to be going down. The price is just consistently going up.”
Goobie said he will call the board himself to request the meeting with Tessier and asked that any councillors who also have questions to send them along so that he can pose them to the chairman.
“I think the most important thing that residents have to understand is that we are one municipality out of several that are under the auspices of the Eastern Regional Services Board,” said Goobie. “We don’t have any control over this, we don’t have any say into this. That’s their board, and they administer the garbage collection for the communities and so this is not the doings of Holyrood, this is the Eastern Regional Services Board.”