Metro residents following garbage rules
ORGANIC WASTE: Six-month grace period ends July 1, penalties kick in if food scraps dumped in regular trash
Although there is a costly ban coming on organic material in trash, Metro Vancouver doesn’t have any garbage police to investigate you.
While statistics haven’t yet been collected, the regional district believes people generally are complying with a ban on food scraps in garbage that went into effect Jan. 1 to reduce such waste in landfills, where it creates the greenhouse gas methane.
The issue will really come to the fore July 1, when a surcharge of 50 per cent is added to loads that contain significant organic material.
Andrew Marr, acting director of solid waste planning for Metro, said there are seven fulltime inspectors that rotate around the seven transfer stations. They do visual inspections as loads are dumped during the peak periods, with a focus on large quantities of organics — such as crates of rotting vegetables from a grocery store.
“We’re not zeroing in on people that have thrown away an apple core,” said Marr.
The first six months of the year are being used to educate people and give them time to adjust to the new rules. But after July 1, surcharges will be added, and enforcement will get even stiffer in 2016 and 2017.
Marr said loads can be as big as 10 tonnes, and with tipping fees at $80 a tonne the penalty for putting the wrong things in garbage could amount to $400 on top of an $800 fee. The tipping fee is $130 for loads under a tonne, so the surcharge would be $65.
About a million tonnes of waste was produced by Metro residents in 2014.
The region’s goal is to reduce that to 900,000 tonnes in 2015.
Robin Freedman of Waste Management, one of the bigger haulers of waste in Metro Vancouver, said co-operation is critical.
“Our strategy is educating customers about the ban,” she said.
“Haulers are the ones that will receive this fine,” said Freedman. “But in the end, haulers will be passing the fine on to customers if we all don’t get this right.”
Albert Shamess, director of waste management for the City of Vancouver, thinks “most people” are following the rules.
“There’s a very small number that we are running into contamination problems with,” said Shamess.
In significant cases, with non-organic waste comprising 25 to 50 per cent of the organic waste bin, Vancouver workers won’t empty the green bin, but leave a sticker or pamphlet to explain the problem.