Council weighs options for new provincial program that would cover all recycling costs
Moosomin Town Council
December 1, 2025, 1:42 pm
Nicole Taylor, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Scott Nelson and Brian Waynert of Loraas Disposal met with Moosomin Town Council at their meeting on Wednesday to discuss the town’s options under the SK Recycles program. Under the program, SK Recycles will be covering the cost of all recycling in the province and is giving municipalities two options to choose between by February 1, 2026—a program-led option or a community-led option.
SK Recycles is Saskatchewan’s new province-wide recycling program for household packaging and paper. The program is funded by businesses that include manufacturers, brand owners and retailers that supply packaging and paper to Saskatchewan residents. SK Recycles works with producers, local governments, First Nations and Métis communities, private companies, other organizations and residents to create a standard province-wide recycling network.
Nelson and Waynert said that under the program-led option, SK Recycles would choose who does recycling collection for the town. Under the community-led option, it would be up to the town who does their recycling.
They suggested the community-led option to the town, pointing out it would give the town more control, and that the town could opt out of it any time and switch to the program-led option if they want.
Under the community-led option, the town would need to become an associate member of Red Coat Waste Authority which would allow them to have control over who comes into the town to do recycling collection. Red Coat would receive the money from SK Recycles to cover the cost of the recycling and Loraas would invoice Red Coat.
Loraas said they could start picking up recycling under the community-led option as soon as June 1, 2026.
Regardless of which program the town chooses, the town will no longer pay for the cost of recycling, and the new program will save Moosomin residents $30 a quarter—$120 a year—on their garbage and recycling bills.
The town decided to table any decision on which option they are choosing so that they could discuss it further and make a decision at a future meeting.
Town will compete in national Communities in Bloom competition in 2027
Council passed a motion that Moosomin compete in the 2027 national Communities in Bloom competition.
The town competed in the national competition in 2026 and received five blooms with a special mention for their work at Bradley Park.
The choice to compete nationally came after the town won in its population category at the provincial level in 2024.
Councillor Andie Hodgson made the motion to participate again at the national level.
“I think it’s a good way to get the community involved, because the community members do so much for us with our beautification and they really do take pride in contributing to the community,” she said.
“I think we have a lot of great accomplishments in it. And I think it results in a lot of community improvement, whether it’s town-wide cleanup or other initiatives that we might not necessarily have the support with if we don’t participate in Communities in Bloom, and I think we’ve been successful in our accomplishments and I would like that continue.”
Truman wants people to take action to deter deer in town in the winter
Councillor Heather Truman said she wanted to start being pro-active when it came to educating people about deterring deer in town this winter.
Over the last few years, Moosomin has seen large numbers of deer move into town during the winter months. The deer have caused damage to people’s yards and have come close to being hit on the streets on multiple occasions.
Truman said she wanted to work on giving people tips on how to deter deer including wrapping their cedar trees in the winter months so that the deer aren’t encouraged to eat them, taking down bird feeders, and discouraging people from actively feeding the deer.
She said she would be looking into initiatives that some other communities had taken to deter deer in town.
Town hall meeting being planned for January
Council is planning to hold a town hall meeting in January and settled on a tentative date of Wednesday, January 28 at 7 pm at the Moosomin Sportsplex.
At the meeting, each committee would provide a report and then take questions from the public.
Towler, Hodgson working on motions for SUMA convention
Councillor Garry Towler told council he’d like to draft a resolution to bring forth at the SUMA convention in April that would allow business owners who do not live within town limits to run for council. He said there have been lots of people who own businesses and have been invested in the community who would be interested in being on town council, however current municipal election rules stipulate that a person must live within the town in order to be on council.
Council discussed some of the pros and cons that could come from a motion like that, and then decided to table it in order to better define who exactly could run for council under the motion.
Councillor Andie Hodgson also said she would like to bring forth a motion at the SUMA convention to lobby the government to help with the costs of decommissioning landfills so that municipalities don’t bear the brunt of the cost when they decide to deccomission a landfill.
Motions presented at SUMA are voted on at the convention. If they pass SUMA advocates for changes based on the motion.
Town hears from Caring Communities
There was a delegation from Caring Communities at the meeting on Wednesday. Rolna Pranke and Paige Volk attended the meeting to talk about what Caring Communities does and the different ways they help families and people in the local area.
Made up of a small group of volunteers, the group does fundraising to help people in need, whether it is with financial difficulties or other difficulties such as health care problems that arise.
The group also runs a number of programs and initiatives such as an adopt a family program, a little pantry at the library, a school backpack program, adopt a long-term care resident program, and they sponsor swimming lessons.
They said they wanted to ensure council knew about them and what they do so that if any of the councillors knew someone who needed help, they could let them know about Caring Communities and have them reach out for help.
Money transferred for 2026 paving
Council passed a resolution to transfer $350,000 from the town’s general account to their future expenditure account for paving not completed in 2025. The money will be used for 2026 paving projects.
