Food scraps composting expands across Vancouver
Waste can now go straight from dinner plate to compost bin
About 100,000 households in Vancouver can throw all their food scraps in the green bin instead of the garbage can starting with Wednesday morning’s pickup.
The expansion of an existing pilot project was announced by Mayor Gregor Robertson Tuesday from an alley behind 16th Avenue, as he demonstrated how to scrape all food — even meat, fat, bones and dairy — from dinner plates into the green bin for composting along with yard waste.
“Everybody needs to step up and be more responsible with their waste,” Robertson said. “It needs to happen with all our organic materials.”
A pilot project in the Sunrise and Riley Park neighbourhoods involved about 2,000 homes. The new city- wide program builds on the principle of diverting organic waste and compost from landfill sites.
Before the expansion, residents could dispose of uncooked fruit and vegetables, tea, coffee and eggshells in their green bins. Now even pizza boxes, napkins and other foodsoiled paper can be thrown in.
It’s part of a larger Metro Vancouver plan to divert all organic material from landfills by 2015, and includes the reduction of curbside garbage pickup to biweekly from weekly by next spring, while green bins will continue to be picked up weekly.
For the time being, there is no change to existing garbage pickup schedules and the expanded food scraps program applies only to people in detached homes or duplexes, which according to the 2006 census accounts for 60 per cent of Metro Vancouver residents.
“In the near future,” city staff will advise council on how to include multi- unit buildings and commercial buildings in the program, Robertson said.
“About 40 per cent of the garbage that goes to landfill is compost and food scraps, so this is a really important initiative to shift all of that into recycling to be able to use it again as a resource,” Robertson said, demonstrating how to keep the flies and rodents out ( keep the lid tight) and how to keep your hands clean when emptying kitchen bins ( line with newspaper).
Fruits and vegetables have been collected in green bins since 2010.
The food scraps will head to private composting facilities the city contracts to manage food waste. It’s expected to be cost- neutral because no new staff or resources are involved in the pickup. All plastic, even if labelled biodegradable, must be kept out, and green bins should be used instead of sink garburators, which empty into the sewage system.
Many backyard compost bins are stamped with “no meat, no fat, no bones” but that’s mostly to keep rodents out and odours in. Industrial compost processes can handle animal products just fine, said Peter Judd, Vancouver’s general manager of engineering services.
Spring Gillard, a compost expert and urban agriculturalist who teaches a course in sustainability at Simon Fraser University, said that backyard composting is still preferable, if possible. The city will continue to sell compost bins at the subsidized rate of $ 25.
“If you’re able, it’s still the first choice to manage your own waste,” she said. “And you get this beautiful rich fertilizer out the other side for your garden, and it’s free. So that’s still the No. 1 priority.”
She also noted that trucking more waste will add to greenhouse gases.
Across Metro, other municipalities are at varying stages of food scrap recycling. Port Coquitlam first collected food scraps in 2008, New Westminster and Burnaby in March, North and West Vancouver programs started this spring, Bowen Island and Pitt Meadows in June, and Surrey’s new organics composting program begins in October along with other regions.
Most municipalities have the specific requirements outlined on their websites.