Hitting recycling target unlikely: Trash report
Delta is the trashiest city in Metro Vancouver, according to a report on solid waste released Tuesday.
Of municipalities reporting, Delta generated so much domestic trash that it ranks No. 1 in the region. In 2017, the suburban farming community produced 465 kilograms per single-family residence, according to a Vancity report.
That compares with Vancouver, which was second at 426 kg per person. The best municipality? Lions Bay produced the least amount at 188 kg.
The statistics are in a report called State of Waste: How B.C. compares in the war on trash. It found that while B.C. is better than the national average at reducing waste disposal, few if any communities will reach a goal of 80-per-cent reduction by 2020.
Morgan Beall, Vancity’s environmental sustainability portfolio manager, said diverting waste and being sustainable means everyone has to be responsible in their own way. “It’s not just doing it individually anymore,” he said. “It’s about bringing in government and businesses and institutions to be more responsible.”
One of the report’s findings is that there needs to be better standards for collecting data. The Vancity report, for example, was unable to get data from Richmond, Surrey and West Vancouver.
Beall said that may have to do with garbage being hauled away by private contractors that don’t make the data public. Data, the report says, is also not available from First Nations communities and small and rural regional districts. “Our report reveals that municipalities don’t share common metrics and reporting standards when it comes to residential waste and how it’s handled,” Beall said.
The report makes 24 recommendations including that governments at all levels introduce standards so that meaningful data can be gathered as the basis for making thoughtful changes.
“The easiest and most cost-effective way to manage and reduce waste is to reduce our consumption of unsustainable goods,” Beall said. “That’s why Vancity encourages people to adopt the concept of lighter living. It’s being more mindful of the goods we buy and consider where those products end up once we put them in the garbage bin or recycling box.”
As examples of lighter living, he pointed to companies that deconstruct houses by taking them apart by hand so the parts can be reused, and retail grocery stores where you bring your own packaging for the food you buy.
“The fact is, we live in a system where consumption is emphasized more than conservation,” the report says.
One success in diversion — defined as waste that is directed to recycling and composting for processing and reuse — is Metro’s organics disposal ban that has led to 60,000 tonnes going to compost in its first year.
Other highlights from the report include:
Nationally, B.C. produces less solid waste per capita and diverts more to recycling and composing than every other province — except Nova Scotia: 195 kg per capita versus 179. The national average is 282 kg per capita.
At 25 per cent of residential waste, spoiled and uneaten food represents the single highest category of waste in B.C.
The 200,000 tonnes of clothing disposed of every year represents two per cent of all Metro’s garbage.
In a separate report released earlier this year, Metro said the region’s rate of diversion in 2017 was 63 per cent. Construction and demolition was 77 per cent ; single-family residences, 62 per cent; commercial and institutional, 48 per cent; and multi-family residential, 31 per cent. The plan set a goal of recycling 80 per cent by 2020.