In plain language · Published October 7, 2026

The garbage math, in plain language.

$3.50

That's the price of one bag tag here, and it's holding: the 2026 rates and fees by-law carries a zero per cent increase on that line, and the 2027 by-law council passed on September 23 holds it at $3.50 again.

Bag tags came up all through September's listening, usually in the same breath as what an ordinary week costs. This page is the system as it actually works, from the by-law and the Clerk's written answers: what you pay, what's already free, and the contract decision that matters more than either.

What a tag buys, and how many we buy

Curbside collection takes a tagged bag, and the tag is $3.50 (By-law 2025-124, Schedule J, held at zero per cent for 2026). The Clerk's office gave me three years of tag sales in writing: 194,529 tags in 2023, 181,630 in 2024, and 187,740 in 2025. I'm not going to turn three points into a trend. What they show is scale: call it somewhere around 185,000 tags a year, which makes the tag a real line in a household's weekly math and a real file for a council, not a rounding error for either.

What's already free

Here's the part of the system that gets the least airtime. At the Waste Management Centre, compost and yard waste, e-waste, tires and white goods all go free (untagged fridges, freezers and dehumidifiers are $20.30). And the $25 minimum scale charge has a tagged-bag exception, so a tagged bag doesn't trigger the minimum. Cardboard and blue box materials don't go to the Centre anymore: since January 1, 2026, household recycling runs through the producer-led Blue Box program and goes out at the curb. Businesses and institutions whose recycling isn't covered by that program can register with the Centre and drop it there at $1.65 a kilogram. The cheapest municipal service is the one you don't know you have, and this list deserves to be impossible to miss.

Corrected October 8, 2026: an earlier version of this page listed cardboard and recyclables as free at the Waste Management Centre. The 2026 fee by-law still carries that line, and I took it at its word without checking it against the January 1 change to the Blue Box program. Two readers caught it the day the page went up. Thank you.

The contract is the real file

Our curbside collection contract expires December 31, 2026, weeks after the new council is sworn in. The Municipality pays BASWR $263,100 this year to run collection across roughly 6,450 stops; that's the Clerk's office in writing, not my estimate. And BASWR itself, the waste co-operative seven Bruce County municipalities built in 1999, is in the middle of becoming a Municipal Services Corporation: all seven members endorsed the direction in 2025, KPMG's June business case projects roughly $800,000 a year in surplus after capital and reserves, our council approved the corporation model in principle on July 8 and passed the corporation's Master Services Agreement by-law on September 23. What's left is the piece you actually feel at the curb: the collection contract itself expires December 31, 2026, and the council elected this month is the one that signs whatever replaces it, a short extension or the long-term deal. Your tag price for 2027 is already set, at $3.50. What that contract sets is the cost underneath the tag, and the price in every year after.

Updated October 9, 2026: an earlier version of this paragraph said the final corporation agreements fall to the next council and that the tag price rides on the contract it signs. The September 23 council minutes show the Master Services Agreement by-law (2026-099) passed that night, and the 2027 rates and fees by-law (2026-098), passed the same night, holds the tag at $3.50. The contract expiry and who signs the next one stand as written; the rest is corrected here.

Found something in the by-law or the numbers I missed or misread? hello@voteshah.ca. If you're right, it gets fixed here, dated, and you get the credit.

Sources: Municipality of Kincardine By-law 2025-124 (2026 Rates and Fees), Schedule J and the Waste Management Centre fee schedule · the Clerk's office, written answers, September 2026 (tag sales; collection contract cost and stops; contract expiry) · Kincardine council meeting, July 8, 2026 (BASWR Municipal Services Corporation file, approved in principle) · Kincardine council minutes, September 23, 2026 (By-law 2026-099, BASWR Waste Management Master Services Agreement; By-law 2026-098, 2027 Rates and Fees, Schedule J: bag tags "have not increased and remain at $3.50/tag") · KPMG business case, June 2026, as provided to member municipalities · Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority, Environmental Fees on Products Sold in Ontario (tires and electronics are collected under Ontario's producer responsibility regulations; fees shown at the till are set by producers or retailers, not by any government) · Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority, Compliance Bulletin: Tire Collection Systems (amended January 2026) and Compliance Bulletin: Municipal Tire Collection Sites (2019): producers must run public collection sites where used tires are dropped off for free; the regulator's map of sites is at ontariorecycles.ca. What you pay for water and sewer is its own page: the bill, shown in full.

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