keside Leader As of Sept. 1, Slave Lake residents are allowed only two bags of trash at curbside on pick-up day. But wait: there are exceptions.
For the month of September, an additional bag for grass clippings (and presumably other garden material) will be allowed. Not only that, the two-bag limit is not absolute if you’re willing to pay for that third or fourth or fifth bag.
Under the town’s tag-a-bag program, residents who have trouble keeping to the new lower bag limits can purchase tags from the town office. The company picking up the garbage will take bags with tags affixed. If they don’t have tags, only two will be taken – or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Apparently one town councillor recently did an experiment to see what would happen if he put out one bag too many. It was left behind.
The reason for the reduction in bag limit – is to encourage residents to recycle. Council made the decision a couple of years ago or more to go down from the six-bag limit to four and finally to two. The landfill cells, which cost about a quarter million dollars each to make, were filling up much too fast, council heard. Not only that, but a large percentage of household waste was actually recyclable.
Council had actually hoped to have a facility set up to take grass clippings by this fall, but that is behind schedule. Hence the motion to allow for additional bags of grass clippings, Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee told The Leader last week. “People have to start recycling!” she said.
Council is still considering where to put the new recycling depot, which is meant to include a receptacle for grass clippings. It was intended to go on lands south of the town shop, but council had been having second thoughts about that location.

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