City working on a plan so food waste plant can reopen

Hamilton residents should soon see their kitchen food waste diverted from the landfill and going to an outside plant while the city works on fixing its own plant, shut down in June due to a stench problem.

The city’s organic waste facility on Burlington Street East is expected to be fixed and running fully again in about a year.

City staff await council’s approval to proceed with seeking a short term contract with a plant outside the city willing to take Hamilton’s organic waste on a temporary basis for now.

Craig Murdoch, city environmental services director, said he doesn’t know when an outside company will start accepting the waste until after council approval for the move. However, Coun. Sam Merulla said he expects a contract will be in place in November.

Murdoch said staff is talking to composting companies outside the city and that most of them are privately-run. There are very few municipally-owned composting sites in Ontario, he added.

In the meantime, the city public works committee on Monday also passed a motion to prohibit grass and yard waste from being placed in kitchen food waste bins, effective April 1.

Hamilton has a separate grass and yard waste pickup and facility in Glanbrook, but residents are currently also allowed to put yard waste into the food waste bins.

The city has been sending collected food waste to the Glanbrook garbage dump since shutting down its compost plant in late June. The plant was closed after numerous complaints about a putrid stench coming from the facility.

City staff are working with the Ministry of the Environment to make changes and get new filters up at the closed plant to eliminate foul odours.

Murdoch said the changes include installing carbon filters and a potential stack extension. He estimates it will take up to a year to get the city’s organic waste facility operating at full capacity again.

Shipping Hamilton’s food waste to another plant in the meantime is expected to cost around $500,000. But that money is coming from the savings from not running the shutdown facility, the committee heard.

“We’re looking at approximately one year to have all odour controls in place so that leaf and yard waste doesn’t impact (the plant),” Murdoch said.

The yard waste is believed to have contributed to the stench coming from the plant.

Staff are targeting Nov. 5 for a slow introduction of new food waste material into the shutdown plant until the odour controls are fully in place, Murdoch added.

By prohibiting yard waste in the food bins — if the move is approved by council — 50 per cent of what goes into the green cart will be eliminated from going to the composting facility on Burlington Street, Murdoch told the committee.

“Many (food waste composting) facilities are not accepting yard and leaf waste because it contributes to odours,” he added.