YORKTON – Yorkton’s Solid Waste Management Bylaw received an update at the most recent regular meeting of Council.
“The City’s Public Works department is continually evaluating the programs and services they offer and Solid Waste Management is one of those services. Solid Waste Management is comprised of Refuse (garbage), Recycling and Organics collection and removal via curbside pick-up plus the ownership and management of the Sanitary Landfill,” explained Aron Hershmiller, Director of Public Works with the city.
Hershmiller said the city’s current bylaw was outdated “and with the recent roll-out of the organics collection program and upcoming changes to recycling collection bylaw, changes were long overdue and required.”
It was noted the city didn’t have a recycling program prior to the 1990’s and are making collection changes effective in Nov 2025, so therefore additions regarding recycling was much needed.
In addition Yorkton now has a permanent Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) collection depot, the second to be approved in Saskatchewan, so this needed to be incorporated as well, offered Hershmiller.
The city also rolled out the organics collection program in April of 2025 with green cart collection. We are one of six cities in Saskatchewan that offer residents curbside organics collection. This service was also added to the bylaw.
“Lastly and perhaps most importantly we wanted to add enforcement options should rules not be followed. Obviously enforcement is not a preferred method but in scenarios of misuse and blatant disregard to the bylaw it will be easier for the city to follow-up with options,” said Hershmiller.
Overall, “The City of Yorkton has one of the lowest solid waste management collection levies in the province, and offers all three collection services plus still has weekly garbage collection,” he added.
The changes received all three readings Monday.
