A plan is being proposed to help deal with soiled diapers once the City of Windsor moves to a biweekly garbage collection schedule.
The biweekly collection schedule begins October 21 in Windsor to coincide with the start of Essex-Windsor Solid Waste Authority's once-weekly curbside green bin collection of organic waste.
Members of the city's environment, transportation, and public safety committee meeting voted Wednesday in favour of a motion introduced by Ward 4 Councillor Mark McKenzie that calls for two courses of action to help families in disposing of dirty diapers, rather than having to wait for two weeks to have them collected.
The first part of the motion calls for the city to reach an agreement with the Essex-Windsor Solid Waste Authority to let residents of Windsor drop off diaper waste at the Public Drop-Off Depot located at 3540 North Service Road E., at no cost to the resident.
The second part of the motion calls for the creation of a pilot project for the rest of 2025 and all of 2026 that would require parents to register for a weekly diaper pickup that could be negotiated and incorporated into the city's current waste collection contract with Miller Waste Systems.
McKenzie says they've been hearing from people since the biweekly garbage collection was announced about what to do with diapers and concerns around the smells.
He describes the pilot project as a bit of a 'soft landing,' saying they know that change is hard.
"Let's try it out; let's see what the response is and how many people are using it. Admin will come back late next year, late 2026, and they'll say this is how many people are actually using it. It's a success; it's not a success; or, hey, maybe we need to expand it a bit further," he says.
McKenzie says not everybody has a vehicle or may live in an apartment building.
"We wanted to make it easier for those individuals. I don't want anybody having to take bags of dirty diapers, jump in a cab, or jump on a Transit Windsor bus to go to the depot to throw out garbage. I don't think that's good for anybody," he says.
The motion approved by the committee still needs final approval at a future meeting of Windsor City Council.