Tuesday March 24, 2026 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke, Executive Lead, UFRIS
There is currently a City of Langford online survey open to residents (to end of day April 8, 2026) regarding an option that Council is considering to provide garbage and organic waste pickup as a municipal service.
Currently households are to purchase on their own garbage and waste pickup. But some don’t, and this leads to some problems in the cityscape.
The survey does not mention composting options, or suggest that a municipal service would be at a lower price point than households pay to private disposal service providers.
There is no open comments section in the survey but comments can be sent by email to the City’s engineering department, even though this is more of a political issue for Mayor and Council that could be part of voter decision-making in the Oct 2026 municipal election.
Here are some thoughts to consider if you’re going to participate in the survey:
• Many Langford households/strata buildings may wish to maintain their choice in selecting a garbage/waste service provider for a range of reasons (including price-point and service-level flexibility).
• If the City goes to one provider for all households that would possibly have a negative business impact on the smaller providers in the waste pickup sector (though the City could possibly contract with different suppliers for different neighbourhoods of the City).
• The survey price range options (if the City were to contract the service and pass on that cost to households) are the same in the survey as what most households are currently paying privately; if the City were to take on the service there should be a price-break for households (in exchange for removing choice of provider).
• The City may instead wish to deliver an effective local education campaign about the importance of responsible waste disposal instead of undertaking a major cost to contract (and indirectly manage) city-wide services.
• The survey did not mention composting. The City should be encouraging household composting of kitchen waste (and overall reduction of kitchen waste by encouraging people to shop/cook more efficiently) as a way to reduce the need for curbside pickup of kitchen scraps and to improve quality of garden soil when ready; people may need to be reminded about the difference between compostable organic kitchen waste vs cooked kitchen waste which should not be put into backyard compost bins.
Article about the City of Langford Waste Collection Options Survey open to April 8 with a ink to the survey (Island Social Trends, March 24, 2026)