14 responses so far ↓

• 1 neil21 // Aug 12, 2014 at 8:34 am

  I went to a biogas talk at the Abbotsford Agri Fair where Fortis and farmers were mad keen for Metro Van (or BC) to allow these food scraps on to farms, to be thrown in with manure, and biogased.

  http://www.fortisbc.com/MediaCentre/NewsReleases/2014/Pages/FortisBC-seeks-energy-innovators-to-grow-BCs-biogas-supply.aspx

  Unfortunately the higher-ups are panicky and stubborn about farms turning into gas plants. And about nutrient leaching.

• 2 neil21 // Aug 12, 2014 at 8:36 am

  For the record, I’d be a big fan of Vancouver’s food scraps being digested for gas. And I wish there was the right policy structure for private business to come collect the scraps as fuel for their gas-making business.

  But hey, too obvious, right?

• 3 Patrick M. // Aug 12, 2014 at 8:56 am

  Any idea on how this affects 100% rental buildings?

• 4 Bharat C // Aug 12, 2014 at 9:11 am

  Your article, like many others on the subject focus exclusively on the costs of food scrap diversion, the issues and pitfalls. It’s almost as if this is all happening for no reason because a capricious god decreed it so. Similar arguments are used by climate change deniers to delay action.

  Vancouver (and Victoria) are running out of space to store their waste. Landfills are an incredible waste of space and resource. They are also a large source of environmental injustice because they’re commonly sited in places where people (usually poor/minority) do not have the political power to oppose them. If everyone’s NIMBY about landfills, only the powerless get them.

  It’s in everyone’s interests to reduce waste and find better uses for organic waste. Of course there will be starting trouble, but as someone who lives in a downtown apartment and has no trouble segregating food waste whatsoever (like many of my friends), I would focus on solutions and rationales as well, not just roadblocks and pitfalls.

• 5 Frances Bula // Aug 12, 2014 at 10:04 am

  @Patrick M. You’re affected too. Up to landlord/property manager to either 1. figure out a food-scraps plan for the building 2. pay the fines the landfill will charge for letting people throw their apple cores in with the rest of their garbage. Higher fees will likely get passed on as higher rent.

• 6 rph // Aug 12, 2014 at 10:29 am

  I am surprised that built in, in suite recycling stations are not mandatory in all new construction. We are regulating door latches, light bulbs, tree replacement et al…

  I segregate all my waste, but I am in a house with a quick turn out the door to put the days accumulation of food waste into my green bin. I would not want to store it in my kitchen for a week.

• 7 Paul Tolnai // Aug 12, 2014 at 10:32 am

  Frances,

  I’ve heard (as a strata Prez) that the waste management companies in the lower mainland (and most certainly in Vancouver) are ready for this and some buildings have already implemented the program.

  Our building has budgeted a 25% increase in costs for dealing with organics recycling. However, we don’t have all the details yet, we were working on the expert advice of our property manager.

  The real question we will have is how will people adapt to the change over. I’ve heard some buildings love it, with their owners able to self police.

  I wonder how hotels and the like will be able to cope though. Their guests aren’t very likely to understand or care to separate their waste.

  Our building is a hybrid building with strata ownership, high percentage of rentals and a large block of units owned by a time share company.

  We’re dreading the implementation because of the quasi-hotel in the building. The learning curve will be very difficult for our building.

• 8 Jenables // Aug 12, 2014 at 11:20 am

  And yet, there are people who can take things to the dump and pay by the truckload (don’t know the politics around how you achieve that) instead of by weight, which means useful, reusable things get smashed into bits. And of course, it is incinerated from there. I wonder too, what happens to the recycling, where the containers end up and what people who are, say, allergic to green bin loving-wasps do. Hehe.

• 9 rph // Aug 12, 2014 at 11:54 am

  Jenables the Vancouver Waste Transfer station is by weight, your vehicle is weighed as you arrive and as you leave. Whenever I have used it, there are staff who oversee your dump (as there are materials restrictions), but yes, there are many things getting tossed in that can be recycled.

  Of course, just one house that gets torn down with the majority of the debris taken to a dump, probably negates twenty years of separating my household waste.

• 10 Michael Kluckner // Aug 12, 2014 at 12:31 pm

  And while they’re getting ready to implement this change the city should also begin an education program to get everybody to freeze the smelly bits until the night before pickup. Our lane has smelled worse than the West Coast Reduction plant on some of these hot days.

• 11 Jenables // Aug 13, 2014 at 10:31 am

  Rph – what I was thinking of was a report I’d read on the two Vancouver landfills in regard to demolition material and it specifically pointed out that at the demolition tipping area of the Vancouver landfill, it is a flat rate/per truckload .

• 12 Jenables // Aug 13, 2014 at 7:39 pm

  Yep, I’m guessing the dirty diapers and bags of dog crap fermenting for two weeks doesn’t help the smell. Hmmn.. Could you put dog crap in the green bin with no bag? Will it be illegal to throw it in the garbage?

• 13 Lee L // Aug 15, 2014 at 9:05 pm

  Bharat C says:
  ‘Landfills are an incredible waste of space and resource.”

  Nah…they are ‘incredibly’ rich mines.
  The next generation will begin to extract the ores as the market dictates.

• 14 teririch // Aug 18, 2014 at 11:08 am

  Surrey has had food scrapping in strata units for a while now.

  At my Mister’s place, each unit has three bins, one for garbage, one for recycling and one for organics. It is very easy.