By Kayla Hounsell
After nearly five years of testing a composting program in select Ottawa neighbourhoods, City Council has approved the possibility of making it mandatory for all residents to drop their smelly wet food scraps in a separate bin.
In November 2005, council instructed staff to go forward with implementation plans for a citywide roll-out of its pilot program in late 2008.The decision is pending the review of costs associated with processing the organics.
A request for proposals will be issued this month for companies interested in building a facility or providing organics processing. A final decision is expected by the end of January 2007 as to whether the costs of a citywide organics program would be acceptable to council.
Most major cities in Canada already have an organics program.
Ottawa’s Compost Plus pilot program was launched in 2001 in four city wards. Participants put organic materials – which constitute food waste, including meat and dairy and soiled paper – into a separate bin.
The organic material is collected and brought to a waste facility transfer station, and then to Quebec for conversion into compost.
“I think it’s an excellent idea,” says Theresa Redmond, a resident of Elmvale Acres who is participating in the program. “It reduces our garbage virtually to nothing. The city provides good service. We find it very helpful and we don’t find it any bother at all.”
Chris Wood, the waste diversion co-ordinator for Compost Plus, says they put reports before council as far back as 1996 to demonstrate a need for an organics program.
“The problem has been a lack of political will to go ahead due to costs, for one thing,” he says.
Wood says if the city had to replace a landfill it would cost anywhere from $100 million to $150 million. The new program would cost about $10 million a year for collection.
Wood says the plan will likely go ahead at this point. Most councillors support the idea now since two private landfills – one on Navan Road and one on Carp Road – have applied for expansion.
He says the Navan Road landfill will be full by 2008 if things continue the way they are. It will last until 2040 with the organics program.
This is the reason some councillors see this move as logical.
“If it can be done in River Ward and done well it can be done elsewhere in the city and the nation’s capital should be leading the way on this,” says River Ward Coun. Maria McRae.
Instead Ottawa is lagging behind the country’s major cities, with only Calgary and Montreal, doing worst in terms of diversion – waste diverted from the landfill by reducing, re-using, and recycling. Ottawa’s diversion rate is 33 per cent. This compares to 40 per cent in Toronto, 60 per cent in Edmonton, and 70 per cent in Markham.
“We don’t have organics in place yet. That’s why,” says Wood, about the diversion rate. “If you take organics collection away from those municipalities they’ll be right down where we are.”
Susan Antler, executive director of the Composting Council of Canada, says she agrees the city needs this program.
“Oh my soul. Of course it does. Organics represent 30 to 50 per cent of the waste stream in residential areas. If Ottawa wants to walk the talk, they have to walk that bin to the curb all across the city,” she says.
Coun. Gord Hunter says he’s not entirely opposed to the program, he just wants to see what the final reports will say to see whether the cost will be worthwhile.
And he says there are other things to consider. For example, the city has a state-of-the-art plasma gasification plant which takes household waste, heats it, and produces steam to drive turbines to produce electricity. He says the organics program might actually mean there won’t be enough of the necessary material to make that program work.
“I’m not saying this is an alternative,” he says. “I’m just saying the issues have to be studied together.”
Hunter is also concerned about participation in the program. “There are more issues around what day the garbage gets collected than people saying whether they want to get involved in Compost Plus,” he says.
Though the program will be mandatory, it’s difficult to ensure residents will actually abide by the rules.
But Wood says there are ways to encourage participation, including educating the public on the benefits of composting, limiting residual trash collection to once every two weeks, forcing residents to put organics – which would still be collected weekly – in the right place, and leaving little residual garbage.
Redmond, who uses the pilot program, says that makes sense.
“I don’t even think we put out garbage every week,” she says. “Maybe a little shopping bag a week.”