Weyburn City Council has approved an amendment to the bylaw regarding what is accepted at the city landfill.

An asbestos surcharge has been added to the fee schedule based on research conducted by the City Engineering Department's findings from other communities after the bylaw came up for review in November 2018.

At last night’s regular City Council meeting, City Manager Matthew Warren explained the protocols now in place.

“There would be an application form that must be filled out,” he said. “Our approval or rejection of the application will be given within two business days from our Engineering Department. Once the application has been approved, the customer must contact the landfill in order to schedule a delivery of the asbestos. Notice must be given at least 48 hours notice prior to delivery.”

He added the hauler must have two copies of the approval permits.

Councillor Winston Bailey said having such regulations in place will spare the dumping of asbestos from other centres.

“We have control of saying, 'yes, we're good under these conditions,' and saying, 'sorry no,' and we can reject it and I think that's very crucial to our landfill and very crucial to this specialty that we actually do need in the city to have an area for this,” he said.

“The secret to this bylaw is that we have the right yet to control what comes in, and I think that's very important,” said Bailey.

He noted he and Councillor Dick Michel discussed the matter very thoroughly, and they concluded that Weyburn does have the capacity for asbestos at the landfill under ‘a very controlled situation’.

Upon approval from the City, the fee for dumping asbestos into the city landfill is $410 with a plus fee per tonne of $110 before January 2022, after which the fee per tonne will go up to $120.

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