Q. I thought Central Elgin was going to construct a sidewalk on East Road in Port Stanley last year.  There's no sidewalk.  What happened?
A.  You are right, the 2009 Capital Budget approved this project.  Central Elgin still plans to construct this sidewalk.  However, East Road is a County Road and the new sidewalk requires County approval.  Central Elgin is now working with the County to satisfy its conditions so the sidewalk can be constructed as soon as possible. 

Q. Why does the Municipality issue garbage tags?
A. A number of small and medium sized Ontario Municipalities have implemented bag tag systems.  The Ontario Centre for Municipal Best Practices identified the following benefits of a bag tag or "pay as you throw system"
 - communicates importance of waste reduction to the public,
 - relatively low cost to administer; and
 - results in significant waste reduction.
Central Elgin implemented its bag tag system coupled with an expanded blue box collection program in 2007. 

Q. Why not require  bag tags for garbage bags that exceed a weekly limit?
A. Although a few municipalities do use this system, enforcing the limits can be a big problem. There is no quick, simple way for the garbage collector to know how much garbage each property is entitled to place at curbside if only excess garbage bags have to be tagged since the number of allowable bags will vary depending upon the the number of dwelling units, places of business or farm status of the property.  Requiring garbage tags on every bag is simple.  If the bag has a tag, it is collected.  If not, it is left behind.  As well, tags increase the public's awareness about how much waste they generate each year.

Bag tags also provide the property owner with flexibility.  If they have more waste one week eg they are "spring cleaning" and have extra garbage, they can use tags and put out as may bags as they wish.  They are not limited to two bags per week. 

More Frequently Asked Questions and Answers about Waste Management are available by clicking here.