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Close the Loop on Waste
How We Manage ‘Waste’
Big Move for Waste
Close the Loop on Waste
Divert organics and capture value from waste
Vision:
Our community diverts all of our organic waste, such as food scraps and yard trimmings, from landfills and recovers value from everything that enters the waste stream.
Current State:
Organic landfill waste accounts for 14% of our communities GHG emissions. There is currently no organic waste pick up service though residential yard waste pickup does exist. The City also sells compost through its wastewater recycling program. The Regional District is currently evaluating options for an organics management facility.
How We Manage Waste
Close the Loop on Waste
1. Divert organics from the landfill 2. Explore other resource recovery technologies
Overview Emissions from waste occur when organic waste mixed in with garbage decomposes in the landfill and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is released into the atmosphere. Organic waste makes up about 30-40% of landfill waste, and includes food waste from homes and businesses, yard and garden waste, wood waste, and paper that cannot be recycled, such as food-soiled paper. Organic material decomposes over approximately 10 years in the local landfill. Organics diversion reduces or eliminates the new waste added every year but the waste that is already in place at the landfill continues its decomposition process. Because of this, it takes a number of years for the emissions reductions from organics diversion to scale up. Of course, how much waste is diverted (the diversion rate) is key to emissions savings.
By diverting organic waste from the landfill, it can be turned into compost that can be sold. There are other technologies that can capture value from the waste stream, such as landfill gas capture, biogas digesters, gasification plants, and waste heat recovery systems. Part of this Big Move is investigating opportunities for these technologies regionally.
Provincial Action
The Province of British Columbia has committed to ensuring that, by 2030, 95% of organic waste will be diverted from landfills, and 75% of landfill gas will captured. The province has also committed to fund workforce training.
Federal Action
The Government of Canada, through its Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) provides funding for infrastructure that enables resource recovery, such as generating renewable fuel from waste.
Looking Forward to 2030 – An Aspirational Target 2.1 kg of organics per person-week (56%) of our community’s residential food and yard waste will be converted to usable compost at a regional processing facility. All the compost created is repurposed into high quality soil for use in local farms and gardens.
