Vancouver approves scheme to collect household compost

Michael Levenston, executive director of City Farmer, is happy that Vancouver city council has passed a motion that as of April 22 will allow residents to dump fruit and vegetables into their yard waste bins for composting. Levenston is pictured at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden on Thursday. Photo by Jenelle Schneider, Province.

Fruits, Vegetables: Just Phase 1 of project

By Frank Luba
The Province
5 Mar 2010

Vancouver has made it easier for residents to be nice to the Earth on April 22 — which just happens to be Earth Day.

Starting then, people that live in single-family residences can start pitching their fruit and vegetable waste into their yard waste bins so it can be composted.

The initiative, passed by council Thursday, is still dependent on negotiations with Metro Vancouver and Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre over use of the company’s composting facility.

That negotiation is subject to confidentiality, but Coun. Andrea Reimer said there will be a “marginal increase” over the cost of landfilling the waste.

Long-term, Reimer said, “the financial arguments are quite compelling.”

Kitchen waste represents about 35 per cent of waste. Composted instead of buried in the landfill, the diverted waste could extend the life of the landfill by as much as 35 per cent.

Because Vancouver has its own landfill in Delta, it only charges $30 per tonne to cover its costs.

When the landfill is full, Vancouverites will be charged what commercial operators pay — currently, $80 per tonne.

Composting fruits and vegetables is just Phase 1 of the plan. Phase 2, in 2011, will allow residents to put all their waste in with yard trimmings — including meat, dairy, cereal products and food-soiled paper like pizza boxes.

If 85 per cent of residents participate in the program, a staff report suggests that composting fruits and vegetables will reduce landfilled waste by 6,100 tonnes annually.

Composting all food waste will divert an additional 9,600 tonnes.

The plan makes a lot of sense to Michael Levenston, executive director of the City Farmer non-profit urban-agriculture group.

“Anything that turns something that would otherwise be buried in a landfill into a useful product is a good thing,” said Levenston.

The first phase of the project carries a $230,000 cost for communication and promotion. Another $75,000 is allocated for Phase 2 communication and $240,000 is being set aside to fund additional local-scale or backyard composting this year.

Metro Vancouver is currently running test projects for composting of the full range of kitchen waste in neighbourhoods in Coquitlam, Delta, the Township of Langley and West Vancouver.

Port Coquitlam began diverting food waste on its own and has seen a significant reduction in garbage.

Comparing a five-week period in January and February 2009 with the same period this year, the reduction was 231 tonnes.