The District of Sparwood is staying the course on its current waste collection schedule, but will be gathering more input on if it should change.
The curbside recycling program launched on April 6, 2026 and with it a move to bi-weekly garbage collection.
That move has certain residents upset.
Councillor Steve Kallies said the feedback has been downright disgusting.
“There’s no need for that. The folks who are trying to do this and brought this in are your neighbours and I tell you what, you send those types of scathing emails behind the scenes to me I’m going to publish it,” he added.
“It’s disgusting what I’ve been seeing. Those attacks are not necessary.”
He said they are workable to make changes if necessary, but dialogue has to be respectful.
It was meant with good intention as a large group of folks in town were not happy about not having recycling at all. Is it perfect? It is not,” he said.
“Show up, have respectful public discourse and lets figure it out. We’re more than happy to entertain different schedules and I bet we could even cost out how much it would cost to do both at the same time, but that’s the problem. People want all of these things, but they aren’t willing to pay for them.”
District staff said not enough time has passed to accurately determine the effectiveness of the program.
The district’s implementation plan calls for a 6-month impact report to be published in September 2026, along with a contamination survey.
Staff said it’s not unusual to see complaints decrease as people get used to the changes.
They said Port Coquitlam received $10,000 calls in the first two months when they introduced a similar program, but by the end of the year calls returned to normal volumes.
District staff said many of the complaints have been around bear activity.
They said bears have been an ongoing issue in the community an isn’t caused by the new program.
Staff said poor practices are what’s causing the bear-garbage conflicts.
That includes placing bins out the night before collection, not securing bins properly and not using bags in the bins among others.
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