Changing waste

Green bins, reuse among waste diversion strategies coming to the County

Ontario would like us to change our trashy ways, but so far this muncipality, and many others, have clung to old habits. In 2007 provincial legislation prescribed that municipalities divert 90 per cent of our garbage–up from about 43 per cent currently.

In 2012, a lot of County waste still finds its way to landfills. More than half of the garbage residents accumulate is collected at waste transfer stations, collected, and shipped elsewhere—at a high cost to the municipality, and the environment.

The 21-member, nine-municipality Centre and South Hastings Waste Services Board, which includes the County, began creating an integrated waste management plan to meet the provincial objective.

The plan, published in mid-2010, looked at every available method of handling waste efficiently and made recommendations for the most ecologically viable solutions to waste management, from different methods of handling bio-solids and compostable materials to educational programs to teach the public how and why to reuse and recycle.

Quinte West and Belleville have already started with pilot projects, and the County will jump on board this year, as the three municipalities will join together to tender a new curbside collection contract. One difference of note: there will be a green-bin component.

A garbage audit done in 2007 revealed that much of the waste that ends up in our landfills is biodegradable. Separating waste from kitchen scraps, cat boxes and diapers would increase the rate of waste diversion significantly.

Public Works Commissioner Rob McAuley says the municipalities will be taking a “collection to grave” approach to the new waste collection contract so that they can track waste diversion.

“We don’t want to just have a contract that says, pick it up and I don’t care what you do with it,” McAuley explained. “We wanted to know what happens down the waste stream with it. So we’re going to be going to the market and saying, tell us, once you pick it up from the curb, what you intend to do with it. And we will be ranking and rating the bidders according to how well they follow [the integrated management plan].”

There are always new technologies promising to improve waste diversion. Recently the idea of turning biosolids into a product called ‘fluff’ was presented before council. However, McAuley says there are many technologies that Ontario municipalities can’t access. He faults the province for that.

“The key problem with this is the province itself,” said McAuley. “This newer technology isn’t getting approved, there’s nobody who can do it. It’s proven in other provinces, you can go to Quebec, turn it into fluff and bring it back here, but we can’t do it here because Ontario won’t issue the permits to do the conversion.”

Reuse programs are also an option for waste diversion. McAuley recalled that when he was living in Guelph, there were curbside programs. A week would be set up for people to set unwanted appliances, furniture and other large objects on the curb without penalty. Other residents could take what they needed from the curb, and whatever was left over would be collected at the end of the week, free of charge.

There are similar programs initiated online by private citizens. Freecycle Belleville is an online community for the city and surrounding residents to give away unwanted items, or request items for others as a means of waste diversion.