The city has had a test going since last September with 2,000 houses to see how residents respond to having their regular garbage reduced to once every two weeks and being encouraged to recycle all their food scraps into their yard trimmings bin.
I’ve been wondering how it’s going and yesterday, I got a chance to get some answers, which ran along the lines of: Pretty darn good.
But I also got a better understanding of why it takes so long to roll out recycling. I’ve been waiting for food-scraps recycling forever, it seems like, and couldn’t understand the city’s go-slow approach.
But, as head engineer Peter Judd said in my story and here, recycling programs don’t inspire an instant embrace from everyone. I hadn’t really clued into that, being a dutiful recycler (daughter of Prairie farmers who just couldn’t bear to throw anything in the garbage) who actually feels pain at seeing a tin can thrown into the regular trash can.
However, it takes a lot of people a lot of prompting to get with the program. And food-scraps-recycling is difficult, remembering what can and can’t go in. When I went down to the 311 centre a couple of months ago, the director there told me that the pilot produced a spike of calls and he expected even more if/when it was introduced city-wide.
Judd also said they’re expecting a lot of people will order larger regular-trash carts to cope with having to hold that garbage for two weeks between pick-ups (though the pilot showed there wasn’t as much cart expansion as had been expected). That will cost millions of dollars if a lot of the 100,000 households in the city decided to move up a cart size.
Once this goes through (and it’s also happening in Surrey and the three North Shore municipalities), it’s expected to produce the biggest jump in recycling since blue boxes went in and transform the region’s garbage diversion from 55 per cent to 80 per cent.
I’m hanging on to my chicken carcass here, just waiting.
60 responses so far ↓
1 gman // Apr 11, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Looks like thing are moving along nicely. http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20120327/KAMLOOPS0101/120329833/-1/kamloops/cache-creek-landfill-to-use-super-quiet-lng-trucks
2 gman // Apr 11, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Never mind the facts MB is having a vision.
3 MB // Apr 11, 2012 at 12:21 pm
By “Factchecker” #61 in a previous post:
Since September 2003, a beneficial use system owned by Maxim Power Corporation has been operating at the City of Vancouver Landfill at Burns Bog. Maxim pipes LFG to CanAgro Greenhouses, and at the greenhouse burns the gas generating 5.55 MW of electricity for sale to B.C. Hydro and 100,000 GJ/year of heat for sale to CanAgro.
The project results in the recovery of approximately 500,000 GJ/year of energy, the total energy requirements of 3,000 to 4,000 homes, and results in a reduction of more than 230,000 tonnes per year CO2 equivalents or the emissions of approximately 45,000 automobiles. The City of Vancouver will receive revenues of approximately $400,000 per year for the duration of the 20- year contract period.
That conversation too Segwayed into landfill gas heating food-producing greenhouses, which came from the notion that the ALR should be subdivided to create “affordable” housing.
http://www.francesbula.com/uncategorized/some-condos-are-selling-like-slushies-in-hell-but-not-all/
4 MB // Apr 11, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Gman, you are overlooking the fact that I actually agreed with two of your points.
Though your delivery sucks, you are a sentient being capable of hitting on a good point now and again.
5 gman // Apr 11, 2012 at 4:33 pm
I think I’m going to buy some garburater futures. Thats where most of the kitchen waste is going to end up,right down the sink.
6 Bill // Apr 11, 2012 at 5:52 pm
@gman #55
If you want to diversify and hedge your investments you may want to include rat traps for those people that embrace recycling food waste.
7 gman // Apr 11, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Bill#56 Good point Bill,this might turn out to be a good year after all.I might look into drain snakes also,I’m predicting a large uptic in plugged pipes.
8 gman // Apr 12, 2012 at 1:16 am
Chris K #42,I’m still waiting.
9 Chris Keam // Apr 12, 2012 at 9:50 pm
Gman:
Sorry, I have a life outside the Internet.
From page 5 of your original document:
“2.0 TECHNOLOGIES AND BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
2.1 DIVERSION OF ORGANIC WASTE
The source of GHG emissions from landfills is the organic waste content (i.e., leaf and
yard material [L&YM], food waste, wood waste, paper, etc.) that undergoes anaerobic
decomposition inside the oxygen-depleted landfill and produces LFG. These BMPs
propose diverting source-separated organic (SSO) materials away from the landfill, thus
preventing generation of LFG.”
The document goes on to suggest that the best way to deal with organic waste is as close to the source as possible. So, while your idea isn’t impossible, it’s not an ideal solution. I’d call it a draw, but will certainly admit you aren’t completely incorrect as I originally thought and apologize for lumping your remarks in with Brilliant’s comments.
10 gman // Apr 14, 2012 at 1:15 am
Nice try Chris your cherry picking and your painful apology really doesn’t cut it .Everything I said is true and proven and is functioning now.Its 2012 Chris get with the program this technology has been around for sixty years hell I can run my car on woodsmoke,open your mind man.We are a part of nature we leave a trail but so does a slug.