Vancouver municipalities implement food waste diversion and composting programs

(27/04/2010)

Harvest Power has announced that multiple municipalities in the Metro Vancouver Region have partnered with Harvest and Fraser Richmond Soil & Fibre Ltd. (FRSF) to implement food waste diversion and composting programs. Harvest owns and operates North America’s largest permitted food and yard waste composting facility at FRSF in Richmond, just outside of Vancouver.

The City of Vancouver began phase one of its Residential Food Scraps Collection program. The city will collect uncooked fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and filters, teabags, and eggshells on a bi-weekly schedule. The food waste diversion program is part of Metro Vancouver’s larger Zero Waste Challenge initiative, which aims to reduce, re-use or recycle 70 percent of all municipal solid waste.

“By partnering with Harvest Power and Fraser Richmond for our new curbside compost program, Vancouver is taking a major step forward to reduce our waste and environmental impact,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “We know it's working in other cities and can be a big success here. We're asking Vancouver residents to pitch in, recycle their food scraps, and help us reach our goal of becoming the world’s greenest city by 2020.”

Vancouver neighbor Port Coquitlam celebrated Earth Day with its own event, during which residents received free bags of high quality soil. The soil was produced at Harvest’s FRSF facility in part from food waste from Port Coquitlam’s residents, who began composting in pilot programs in 2008. In the first two months since Port Coquitlam began collecting all types of kitchen waste in January, the city reduced the amount of landfilled municipal solid waste by approximately 350 tons. The city hopes to save as much as $225,000 over five years in waste disposal costs through its Kitchen Waste Collection Program and other waste-reduction initiatives.

Fraser Richmond also attended a community event on Earth Day to launch the nearby City of Burnaby’s new Food Scraps Recycling program, scheduled to begin in July. The City of Richmond began its own food and yard waste recycling program earlier this month.

“Vancouver and the surrounding cities have long been recognized as leaders in urban sustainability, and the facility we operate at FRSF is a model of success for other cities wondering if large-scale organics recycling projects can work for them,” said Paul Sellew, founder and CEO of Harvest Power. “A lot of what people typically throw out isn’t really ‘garbage.’ By recycling organic waste, we’re helping communities like those in Metro Vancouver extract that value and give it back to their citizens.”

Related categories:  Biodegradable waste   Environmental technologies for Residential and Green homes   Recyclable materials