The familiar red and white Loraas trucks will be rumbling through the streets of Warman for another three years.
Warman City Council voted at a meeting on Monday, February 14 to renew the city’s waste and recycling contract with the company.
The current contract was signed in 2019 and will expire in May, 2022.
Loraas, a Saskatoon-based company founded in 1965, operates a regional landfill site south of Martensville and provides garbage and recycling collection to 14,000 households in communities surrounding Saskatoon, as well as commercial waste collection services.
Prior to 2008, the City of Warman performed its own waste collection services. The city contracted with Loraas in May, 2008 for front-street waste collection and expanded into recycling pickups in 2011. Waste and recycling are picked up on alternate weeks in black and blue bins.
The cost of garbage and recycling collection has increased over the years. According to a report by Warman city administration to the February 14 meeting, the monthly charge for each waste cart was $6.00 during 2011-13. It rose to $8.90 per month in 2014-16, to $10.95 in 2017-19. The fee is currently pegged at $11.05 per month.
Recycling cart charges have also gone up.
Each blue bin cost the city $4.25 per month in 2011-13, $4.42 in 2014-16, $4.90 in 2017-19, and is currently set at $5.00 per month.
Discussions on the terms of a new contract were initiated last month between Warman city officials and Loraas representatives. At the time, Loraas indicated it wished to renew the contract with a 7% fee increase starting in May, 2022.
Warman City Councillors directed administration to provide information on other potential service providers. While the elected representatives were happy with the service provided by Loraas, they felt a 7% increase was too steep, even though the cost of the service had remained unchanged since 2019.
Loraas representatives noted that the cost of fuel and other inputs has risen substantially; and higher user fees were needed to offset those increased costs.
In the end, Loraas proposed a graduated increase over the three-year term of a new contract. The new fee schedule, which council agreed to at the February 14 meeting, will see a zero per cent increase in 2022, a 3% increase in 2023, and 3% increase in 2024.