Jurgen Deagle pulls a clear garbage bag from a Cabin Creek wastebin. Paper, food scraps, milk containers and tin cans jangle noisily as the bag rustles against the metallic box. About 80 per cent of the bag’s contents could have been recycled or composted, Deagle mentions, counting the refundable containers unnecessarily bound for the landfill.

Deagle, an environmental management specialist with Parks Canada, reaches in again and pulls out an entire binder full of paper, complete with a small diploma a recent graduate had earned. The paper, binder and paper clips could have been recycled, but instead are bound for the Hinton Landfill site.

The story is surprisingly common within a community that prides itself on environmentalism.  Jasperites are only diverting 30 per cent of their waste from landfills, thus reducing the life of local landfills and risking higher garbage fees.

Municipal and Parks Canada officials are concerned the town’s waste diversion rates have not changed in recent years, seeing only a modest increase from 24 per cent to 30 per cent.

“It’s flatlined. It’s depressing,” said Janet Cooper, the Environmental Stewardship co-ordinator with the town of Jasper. “Our target is 50 per cent. It’s not going to happen without some major changes.”

Jasper’s last waste audit showed that 60 per cent of its waste going into the landfill could have been diverted into the recycling or composting stream through existing programs. Jasper pays $43 a ton to ship its garbage to the Hinton landfill. That rate jumps to $120 a ton if the load is contaminated with too many recyclables. It jumps to $200 if items such as mattresses are found in the load. 

“Our fees have gone up substantially in the last few years,” Cooper said.

There have been instances where mattresses have been stuffed into municipal garbage containers, or they have been placed in garbage bins at the transfer station, Cooper said.

Mattresses also take up a lot of space, and do not break down properly in a landfill, hence the extra charge.

“If it’s stuffed inside the bin, it ends up at landfill. The landfill can make the call if a load is too contaminated, and they can up the fee,” Cooper said.

The Hinton landfill has let Jasper know there has been an ‘unacceptable’ increase in irregular items, Deagle says, such as tires, paint and mattresses. This has resulted in higher fees for the municipality.

Deagle said there are many effective provincial stewardship programs in place for items such as paint and tires. Regardless, waste is a user pay system. Deagle says there is currently no cost difference for the individual who only produces a small grocery bag of garbage a month and the person who creates six black garbage bags full of waste. The municipality has looked at several ideas to increase recycling rates, such as curbside pick-up of unsorted recyclables.

“There’s a lot more we can still do. We’re investigating options to make it easier for the residents and business, so it won’t be as onerous,” Cooper said. “Unsorted recyclables pick-up for example. If you had one bin for all of your recyclables and had that taken away, it would be easy.”

However there is a cost. The municipality would have to examine how much revenue they would make from the recyclables, how much their garbage bills would drop, and how much gas money would be saved through such a program. Deagle says residents pay one way or another, either through their personal time to sort their waste or through increased fees.

“Residents will choose how to pay for it. They can do the work themselves and sort and have reduced fees. If they don’t do that, they’ll pay their fees through the garbage utility bills,” Deagle said. “It wouldn’t come on your taxes, it would come on your utility bill.”

There are also payment possibilities as well. Once the municipality installed water metres, water consumption immediately dropped by 20 per cent. A similar system could work for waste.

“If everyone knew a garbage bag cost $5, there would be a difference,” Deagle said.

“But you can’t make the cost too high, or you’ll see more illegal dumping,” Cooper said.

The town and Parks Canada are attempting to push food composting as an effective way to reduce the weight bound for the landfill. It is supposed to roll out 25 new community composting bins throughout Jasper this year, however only six have been installed thus far. Cooper says concrete footings must first be put into place before the compost bins can be installed. 

“The biggest way we can impact that diversion is composting, because of the weight,” Cooper said.

Restaurants can participate in a voluntary composting program, where their organic waste is picked up for free by the municipality. Restaurants such as Evil Dave’s keep their compostables behind their shop, however some restauranteurs complain they don’t have the space in their kitchen for the bins.

“They say they don’t have the space or they don’t leave them outside, because the compost freezes and you can’t get it out of the bin,” Cooper said.

Other businesses have taken their own initiative, such as Pine Bungalows and Jasper Park Lodge, Cooper said, which have recycling and composting programs that are ‘better than the town’s, she said.

Another tool Parks Canada and the municipality are trying to promote is the transfer station - a location most residents believe is closed, Deagle said. 

Most of the items that are being dumped around town can be taken to the transfer station for free. 

The Jasper National Park Transfer Station has also seen a massive reduction in the amount of commercial waste in the past year and isn’t sure why. In 2008-2009, the municipality shipped 3,022,630 kilograms of waste to Hinton through the transfer station. In 2009-2010, that number dropped to 2,783,170.

The transfer station still accepts all waste from the town The site allows items to be sorted before being transferred to Hinton, and can handle items such as appliances, electronics, paint, mattresses, unpainted wood and metal. All of these items can be left at the Transfer station for free. Refrigerators do require a fee to be dumped at the station and the only items that aren’t accepted are contaminated soil, asbestos, creosote tiles, car bodies and asphalt. 

“There’s a misconception there is a cost. It’s free for most items,” Deagle said.

Cooper said the municipality frequently finds mattresses, appliances and other recyclable items dumped beside bins or in the woods. Most recently, an entire back yard deck was dumped in the Cottonwood Slough. Most of the items could have been taken to the transfer station for no cost.

“The town has always had a problem with illegal dumping. People stack things outside the bin or it’s stuffed inside the bin and ends up in the landfill,” Cooper said.

Increasing the curbside pick-up days could be one way of combatting this issue, Cooper said. The town may hold more take it or leave it events - where items are left for free and then taken away by the municipality.