At last night’s Council meeting the decision was made that, effective July 1, the large Westport garbage bags will no longer be available. Garbage tags will be used on large clear garbage bags after that date. You can continue to use large Westport garbage bags, if you have them after July 1, without attaching a tag. Small Westport garbage bags will be available until 2018. We are in discussions with three downtown Westport businesses and expect to announce in the next few days where the tags will be available for purchase after July 1.
So the good news is that we listened to your complaints to get rid of the garbage bags and to find locations with convenient operating hours where garbage tags could be purchased. However, there is a price increase for the tags – they will cost $2.50 each. I suspect some of you might wonder how changing to tags would result in a price increase, so here is some information that will help explain.
Our auditor strongly recommended that when we design/produce the tags, they be numbered sequentially. This adds significantly to the cost of a tag – an additional 28%. We also heard from many people that we need to source out a tag that will stick to the bag, and not provide flimsy tags that come apart when applying them to the bags. Thirdly, the garbage tags for the Township of Rideau Lakes are for sale in the Village for $2.50. The Village needs to provide a similar priced product to avoid confusion at point of sale or the possibility of a lesser priced Westport tag being placed on a township garbage bag, which will either cause confusion in Portland or increase the cost of our garbage pick up. Finally, the business owners need a small amount of compensation for selling Village garbage tags.
The Village will be putting out more detailed information in the next few weeks, however I wanted to update you on this decision of Council made at last night’s meeting.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact the Councillor of your choice or me @ 273-9195.
Robin, The Mayor 