Ottawa city officials are planning to launch a program next year to test the success of organic waste collection for apartment buildings.
The city’s organics program currently includes only single-family residences with curb-side garbage pick-up for the first phase of its green bin collection, scheduled to begin in January 2010.
But Kevin Wylie, city manager of solid waste planning and diversion, says the pilot project for condominiums and multi-unit buildings will add some extra stops to the collection calendar, as a test run to smooth out challenges larger buildings face.
The main problem with multi-unit residences is finding space for the green bins, he adds.
“Where it gets a little more complicated is where everybody just brings their garbage to one location,” says Wylie. “There’s a whole category of special circumstances we’re looking at.”
These include whether highrise style chutes will be used for organics collection or if residents will be given small containers for their kitchens to bring to a larger common bin. Whether the bins can be stored inside or outside a building is also an issue.
Heritage buildings that have already had to improvise space to include blue and black boxes for garbage pickup will be hit hardest with spatial problems, says Valerie Wiseman, an administrator at the Ottawa Region Landlords Association.
Wiseman manages several heritage buildings, mainly small apartments with up to 25 units. She says the smaller buildings do not have garbage rooms like large apartments and are already forced to keep garbage and recycling bins in the front hall or outside.
“In some buildings there just wouldn’t be any space at all,” she adds.
The goal of the pilot project is to fine-tune these issues and the city’s objective is to “roll out organics throughout all residential buildings,” says Wylie.
Almost 30 per cent of Ottawa's downtown population lives in apartments.
Toronto underwent a similar project testing organic waste collection for apartments. Last December a formal program began that aims to distribute green bins to Toronto’s 5,000 multi-unit buildings, says Patricia Barrett, a senior communications coordinator for the city of Toronto.
“There’s a real keenness and urgency for us to open up the green bin collection program to this audience,” says Barrett. “It represents half the population in Toronto.”