Halton Region plans to significantly boost its automated wheeled garbage cart collection program, increasing the number of participating households from 1,800 to about 18,000 by mid-2025.
Building on the success of the pilot, the expansion aims to optimize collection routes and maximize the efficiency of the region’s automated collection fleet.
The program will roll out to approximately 2,750 households in Milton (Wards 1, 3 and 4), 5,500 new households in Burlington (Wards 1, 2, 4 and 6), 950 households in Halton Hills (Wards 2, 3 and 4), and 7,000 households in Oakville (Wards 2 to 7).
Households affected by the change will be notified in early 2025, with the program starting in June. The standard wheeled garbage cart will have a 240-litre capacity, though residents can request a smaller 120-litre cart if preferred.
The expansion is limited to garbage collection, as Circular Materials Ontario, which will manage the blue box recycling program in Halton — and across Ontario — starting from 2026, has opted to keep the current manual collection system for recycling.
“It is their sole discretion and sole responsibility to select the levels of service — be that the type of instrument used to collect the recycling and the days that it's collected on,” said Andrew Farr, commissioner of public works, at the latest Halton regional council meeting.
He added, “But what we continue to do is to advocate with the province and with our collection contractor to make sure that what Halton ends up with is a really good program, it doesn't erode what we have now, which has really good participation from our residents.”
As part of the changes, recycling carts used by households in the existing pilot area will be replaced with traditional blue boxes, while organic waste will continue to be collected in existing green carts.
Further expansion of the automated waste collection program will be explored past 2027, once new collection contracts are finalized.
“We will look for opportunities to see if there are other routes that can be added. No promises at this point, but it is on our radar,” Farr said.