In September 2024, Norfolk County Council considered one of the largest changes to waste collection services in decades.

The direction included a County-wide green bin program, automated cart collection, garbage pickup every two weeks, expanded yard waste collection and a significant increase in annual operating costs.

What makes this decision remarkable is not simply the cost.

It is that Norfolk County’s own public consultation appeared to point in a different direction—and that some of the evidence used to support the decision came from a one-week waste audit conducted during the middle of Norfolk’s harvest season.

What Residents Said

According to Norfolk County’s public consultation:

  • 58% of respondents were not in favour of an organics program.
  • County-wide organics ranked last among the options presented.
  • 43% preferred manual collection, compared with 38% who preferred automated collection.
  • 47% did not prefer cart-based collection.
  • Among residents without curbside yard waste collection, 57% preferred continuing to use a transfer station.
  • 56% supported reducing garbage bag limits.

Despite those results, Council approved County-wide organics, automated collection, expanded yard waste service and a new cart-based system.

Residents may reasonably ask why.

How Much Data Was Collected?

Staff first presented the collection options on March 19, 2024. Public consultation ran from May 21 to June 11, 2024.

During June 2024, the County conducted a four-week set-out survey observing 250 urban and 250 rural homes.

Norfolk provides curbside service to approximately 31,500 single-family homes. That means the survey observed approximately 1.6% of the households served by the program.

Did the sample adequately reflect Norfolk’s different communities, household types and waste-disposal practices?

The more detailed waste audit examined only 95 homes—50 urban and 45 rural—from August 12 to 16, 2024. That represents roughly 0.3% of the homes served and only one week of data.

The audit found approximately 4.79 kilograms of potential green-bin material per urban household and 4.76 kilograms per rural household. Staff used that similarity to support a County-wide organics program rather than one limited to urban areas.

But timing matters.

Norfolk is one of Ontario’s major fruit- and vegetable-producing communities, and mid-August falls directly within harvest season. Corn cobs and husks, garden produce, fruit and vegetable trimmings, canning and preserving can all increase the amount of organic material found in household garbage.

Final recommendations went to Council on September 10, 2024, less than one month after the audit. The collection contract was not awarded until July 8, 2025, and the new service does not begin until September 28, 2026.

The unanswered question is why fall, winter and spring samples were not collected before Norfolk committed to a permanent County-wide program.

A one-week summer snapshot is not the same as a full-year picture.

Was There a Less Expensive Option?

The consultation found that 56% of respondents supported reducing garbage bag limits.

Staff reported that if manual collection were maintained and bag limits were lowered, annual savings could be as much as $300,000—approximately a 0.2% reduction in the net levy requirement.

That option would still have reduced garbage going to landfill and encouraged greater use of diversion programs. Instead, Council selected a much larger service expansion with substantially higher annual costs.

$3.78 Million More Every Year

The July 8, 2025 staff report compared an approved 2025 waste budget of approximately $4.21 million with a first full-year budget of approximately $7.99 million under the new program.

That is approximately $3.78 million more every year, representing an estimated 2.8% increase to the municipal net levy requirement.

The frequently cited $963,200 figure is the additional cost of weekly manual garbage collection compared with the selected biweekly automated option. It is not a $963,200 saving compared with Norfolk’s existing waste budget.

Nearly $1 million more is not a saving—and the complete program still costs approximately $3.78 million more annually.

More Than $5 Million for Carts

Council also approved a $5.029 million budget to purchase the garbage and organics carts required by the new system.

The County says the one-time purchase is funded through Legacy Fund investment income and therefore has no immediate impact on the tax levy.

That does not make the carts free. It is still more than $5 million in public money that cannot be used for another purpose.

The cart purchase is also separate from the approximately $7.99 million annual waste-program budget.

The Issue Is Decision-Making

This article is not about whether green bins are inherently good or bad. Waste diversion matters.

It is about decision-making.

When residents are surveyed and Council proceeds in another direction, residents deserve a clear explanation.

When a program increases annual costs by millions of dollars, taxpayers deserve to understand the entire comparison—not simply the least expensive option within the new tender.

And when evidence gathered during one week in August helps support a permanent County-wide program, residents deserve to know why seasonal samples were not collected before the decision was made.

The facts are public. Residents should review them and decide whether all the right questions were asked.

Watch the Council Discussions

County Information

Authorized by Noel Haydt, Candidate for Mayor