Compost by-laws

From Common Energy UVic

This is a project of the Food Working Group

Presently in the CRD, Oak Bay and UVic collect organic waste for composting. Our regional landfill, the 'Hartland Dump' allows organic wastes. This project's aim to have Hartland closed to organic waste. The closure of Hartland for organic waste will greatly extend the lifetime of the landfill, encourage more local composting, and make compost pick-up more cost effective for the region. As well, presently local compost is trucked out of our region to a digestor up island. If Hartland were to close, the purchase of a local digestor would be more cost-effective if all the local municipalities were to share the cost. A local digestor would decrease the greenhouse gases emitted to transport the organic waste and increase the local efforts to encourage the positive practice of composting.

[edit] Background

• Current predictions estimate that the Hartland landfill will be full by 2045
• A 2005 Solid Waste Stream Composition Study conducted by the CRD found that approximately 30% of material entering the landfill was organics that could be composted
• the CRD has the authority to impose a ban on organics at the Hartland landfill
• the CRD does not have the authority over garbage collection (I assume that authority belongs to the municipalities??)
• the CRD has a waste diversion goal of 60% by 2012 and 85% by 2020

• a residential organics collection pilot was commenced in October 2006 in the District of Oak Bay and in January 2007 in the Town of Royal View
• A report on to the Environment Committee with the subject "Residential Organics Collection Pilot - Findings and Next Steps" can be be found on the CRD's website: http://www.crd.bc.ca/waste/organics/documents/ESW07-81ResidentialOrganicsCollectionPilot-FindingsandNextSteps.pdf
• Some findings of the report include:
  • residents of Oak Bay and Royal View were supportive of the program and some were even willing to pay extra for organics collection
  • a main barrier to widening the project was the lack of a local composting facility; currently the organics are trucked to Nanaimo to be composted. The facility at Nanaimo is at capacity and cannot accept an increase in materials. AS well, trucking organics to Nanaimo is harmful to the environment and contributes to greenhouse gas release
  • trucking the organic material up-island to Nanaimo offset any potential cost savings the program would have provided
• Six 'Next Steps' are outlined in the report, and include:
  • working with private industry to establish a composting facility in the region
  • implement a landfill ban on organics by 2010