News Article Details

Organic Material Diverted From Lanfill

Sep 22, 2017
Since Metro Vancouver banned organic materials from area landfills two years ago, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste have been diverted. But a surprising amount of organic waste — things like food scraps and paper soiled by food — is still ending up in the garbage. Organic waste makes up 28 per cent of waste at landfills, according to the latest numbers. Metro officials are pleased with the results, but say more work needs to be done. "Probably the two biggest areas we need to work on are still organics, [and construction and demolition waste]," said Andrew Marr, Metro Vancouver's director of solid waste planning. Last year, nearly 450,000 tonnes of organic waste was turned into compost, an increase of nearly 30 per cent from 2015 when new rules banning organic waste from garbage bins were implemented. The ban is part of a strategy to divert 80 per cent of the region's garbage from landfills by 2020. Right now, diversion rates are at about 63 per cent. While many residents and businesses have embraced sorting all their garbage, including setting aside sometimes icky food waste, there are still many others who don't. Tetra Tech Canada is a company contracted by Metro Vancouver to physically sift through garbage at landfills to determine what's in all the plastic bags. Workers are still finding a lot of food waste. "It's not the easy organics like the yard waste or apple cores, it's actually food waste like when you clean out your fridge," said Avery Gottfried, an engineer with the firm. He says residents or businesses aren't doing all they can to keep all their food waste out of garbage cans. "You have to take the effort to scrape out your jars or empty things that are a bit more gross, as people might think. There is also a big difference in participation levels between residents in single family homes and those who live in multi-unit residential buildings. Single family home residents sort more. In Metro Vancouver's latest report on the state of waste diversion, data shows that those in single family homes divert 66 per cent of their waste, while those in multi-unit residential buildings or MURBs, have a rate of 29 per cent. Watch Gottfried explain how people in the two separate dwellings take responsibility for separating their waste.
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