County of Brant Council approved its new Solid Waste Management Master Plan (SWMMP) during its regular Council meeting on Tuesday, September 23, 2025.
The new plan serves as a roadmap over the next 25 years, laying a foundation for a sustainable and resilient waste management system that meets the needs of the growing community.
During the Policy Development Committee meeting on Tuesday, September 2, 2025, County staff explained that the plan has been divided into three timeframes: the short term (between 2025 and 2027), the medium term (2028 to 2040) and the long-term (2041-2050).
“The SWMMP includes a review of the County’s existing programs, infrastructure and service delivery model, identifies opportunities for improvement and outlines a phased strategy for implementation,” read the report from Matthew D’Hondt, the County’s Solid Waste/Wastewater Operations Manager.
In the short term, the County plans to accomplish the following:
- Implement Scalehouse Software (2026)
- Develop Promotion and Education Strategy (2026)
- Reduction of Urban Yard Waste Collection from nine (9) to six (6) collections per year (2027)
- Discontinue Christmas Tree Collection (2027)
- Develop and Implement Curbside Collection and Solid Waste Facility Waste Audit (2027)
In the medium term, the County plans to accomplish the following:
- Develop and Host Waste Management Facility Tours (2028)
- Curbside Ban of Recyclables in Garbage (2028)
- Automated Curbside Collection Planning and Implementation (2032 – 2034)
- Organic Waste Program Planning and Implementation (2032 – 2034) Program
- Solid Waste Funding Strategy (2030 – 2031)
- Curbside Collection Optimization Study (2030-2031)
- Continuation of Waste Audits, every four (4) years (2031 and beyond)
In the long term, the County will start planning for waste disposal needs for 2055 and beyond, beginning in and around 2040.
During last Tuesday’s meeting, Councillor John Bell expressed his concerns over the timeline for the County’s organic waste program, stating that he wanted a more robust economic justification for the delay.
“Last week, staff brought forward a very well argued case for purchasing additional lands to allow us to extend Biggars Lane [Landfill], and they did so with a very good supporting economic analysis,” he said. “My concern is we did not get the same quality of economic analysis for this proposal in the Solid Waste Management Master Plan, which basically said, we’re not going to have automatic pick up or organic waste collection until 2034 – that’s nine years away from now. We are surrounded by municipalities that have already made this step … I would like to make a proposal to defer this particular recommendation until staff can come back with a better supported economic argument for the proposal they wish to make. …They may well have made the best case already, but it has not been demonstrated economically to me.”
When Councillor Steve Howes asked if there was any downside to having staff prepare an economic analysis, Andrea Bazzard, the County’s Director of Environmental Services, stated that while she didn’t know exactly how long an analysis would take, staff must consider the timing of the current waste collection contract.
“Our current collection contract expires in May 2027,” she said. “Staff do have a requirement to start preparing for the issuance of the new RFP, which is set to hit the streets in January of 2026, so that we can evaluate, award, and have the new contract in place for June 1, 2027.”
Councillor Lukas Oakley then said he would be supporting Bell’s deferral, saying that he suspected that a long-term cost analysis would show that there are benefits to implementing both automated curbside collection and an organic waste program sooner rather than later.
“We’ve declared a climate emergency and we have a climate action plan,” he said. “All of this indicates that we should be prioritizing the green bin program.”
Oakley also referenced letters written by students from Cobblestone Elementary School in Paris, asking for an organic waste program earlier this year.
“I thought it was poignant in a way, that these kids were requesting that we care for their future,” he said. “I also thought it was relevant that, as per the current timeline, these children who were in Grade 6 last year, will have voted in the most recent municipal election by the time we get green bins in place. So I think that’s representative of it being an irresponsible abdication of the leadership that our community is looking for, for us to allow that to go untended for so long.”
In comparison, Councillor David Miller said that he personally felt that staff had already explained why they were waiting to implement the two programs (such as the cost of purchasing the equipment, implementing the program and the fact that more studies need to be done).
Miller added that implementing a green bin program would require another truck to collect the organics, which could lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. He also noted that many people already compost their organics and he didn’t know how many people realistically needed green bins at this time.
“So there’s a lot of information we don’t have, but we do know it’s going to be costly, and so I think the staff has made a good call on this,” he said.
Howes then said that while he respected what Bell and Oakley were trying to do, and that economic analysis is always a good idea, it would logistically be impossible to implement an organic waste collect program in the next year or two.
“I wouldn’t want to see us endangering getting the RFP out on time in exchange for having staff put a lot of time into the economic analysis when we’re not in a position to change directions in the short term anyway,” he said.
Councillor Christine Garneau also shared similar sentiments with Howes and Miller.
“One of the things that’s going to happen over the next several years is that we’re going to put the teeth in place to allow us to enforce the use of the green bin,” said Garneau. “If we were to delay right now, we not only risk getting the most competitive pricing that we can for our existing waste management, but we also risk introducing a program that we can’t really enforce which seems counterproductive.”
The motion to defer approval of the SWMMP as it stands was then defeated in a vote of 9-2, with Oakley and Bell being the only ones to support the deferral.
The vote to approve the new SWMMP as presented, was then carried 9-2, with Oakley and Bell voting against it.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
