What a waste

Garbage collection is one of the city’s most basic and necessary services. It is also a service with enormous room for innovation and improvement.

On the pickup end, garbage service helps people keep their home safe and clean. On the other end, how we dispose of that material makes a big difference to our city’s future and our planet’s future.

Containers ascend the conveyor system at the city Material Recovery Facility (MRF).

The provincial target for waste diversion is 60%. That refers to the percentage of garbage that ends up somewhere other than the landfill. Anything that is recycled, composted, or re-purposed fits into this category.

How is London doing on waste diversion? Not great. Our current rate is 44%. Why is that a problem? London’s landfill site, W12A, is only expected to meet the city’s needs for another 15 years. It’s already the size of 190 football fields. Improving waste diversion will help that space to last longer, which would cost over $100 million to expand. It’s time to lay out a plan to meet or exceed the provincial waste diversion target in a cost-effective way.

That plan must include a strategy for organic waste. We do well with recycling, for the most part, and the new items being collected in blue boxes will help. London’s progress on organic waste has stalled in recent years. A Green Bin pilot project was completed in 2012, but we haven’t seen any move since then to roll the program out to all Londoners.

Many festivals (including Sunfest) did not have an organics composting stream this year.

City festivals also began separating organic waste at EcoStations in 2007. It was a great way to make our festivals greener while getting Londoners ready to sort food waste at home. Unfortunately, that step forward disappeared this year as well. London no longer requires big festivals to separate compost at EcoStations, and Home County was the only festival to do it in 2014.

Door-to-door green-bin collection isn't the only possible way for the city to deal with food waste. The city could also look at providing people who live in houses with composters and educate residents on how to use them. Of course, that wouldn't be a solution for people who live in apartments, but it would be a start. 

We can also look at the causes of food waste in the first place, and work to reduce it: the average Canadian throws away one pound (0.45 kg) of food each and every day.  That adds up to nearly 6 million tonnes of waste nationwide that could otherwise feed the hungry or be diverted from the dump. The bottom line is that we can't divert more of our waste away from the landfill unless we deal with compostable food waste.

I've been asked at the door and at all-candidates meetings whether I would support moving London to same-day, once-a-week garbage pickup. Some are passionate about making this change, while others see our rotating system as an innovative way to cut costs and still provide efficient service. I think our system works well for the most part. In addition to the collection calendars delivered each Fall, there are electronic tools available for those who have trouble keeping track of garbage day: the My Waste app and LondonTrash.ca.

If we were to go to same-day pickup, I would prefer to see a waste collection system where recyclable and compostable material is picked up the same day every week, while garbage is collected every other week. Most of the complaints I hear about the rotating schedule are about garbage getting messy and stinky after eight days, especially in the summer. Food waste is the messy and stinky part of garbage. With that removed every week, what remains for bi-weekly pickup should not present those issues.

Along with organics, we can do a better job of dealing with the household waste left behind when people move out. A drive through Ward 6 at the end of Western’s term makes that obvious. There are some great ideas out there to improve this situation, but it needs to be a co-ordinated effort, included in London’s waste strategy.

On council, I will push for a comprehensive waste program that deals with organics and household waste, and increases out diversion rate.

On a final note, some of these subjects are covered in Road Map 2.0, a report city staff have prepared on waste diversion. It recommends that a decision on green bins be deferred until a new review is completed this year. It doesn't propose a strategy for move-out waste.

You can viewthe report and provide your feedback on the city’s Web site. If you are sending in comments to city staff, I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. Comment below, or e-mail me any time at mike@bloxam.ca.

De-Greening of the festivals

Remember in 2007 when "EcoStations" started popping up at the festivals in Victoria Park?  The initiative—dubbed "Greening of the festivals"—aimed to reduce waste by diverting recyclable and compostable materials from the garbage dump, and it came in endorsed by organizers of some of the heavy hitters such as Sunfest, Home County Folk Festival, and RibFest.  Championed by the City of London thanks to the efforts of Waste-Free World and Thames Region Ecological Association (TREA), the initiative targeted reducing the environmental impact of the festivals.

Greening of the festivals encouraged folks to bring their own dishes and drink containers or use the on-site reusable dishes, while also keeping in mind the three streams of waste disposal:  recycling, composting, and garbage.  The EcoStations provide an enormous number of volunteer hours, allowing citizens (particularly high-school students) to help out by instructing festival attendees how to properly dispose of their waste.  These volunteers  keep down the cost of running the EcoStations.

Photo courtesy of TREA

On Tuesday evening, the Special Events Public Consultation Meeting took place at the Civic Garden Complex.  Scott Stafford and Krista Kearns of the Community Services Department did an excellent job of going over the policies and procedures that will change in the 2013 manual for the 2014 season (with Ms. Kearns's assistant taking minutes).  Unfortunately, the ratio of staff members to audience participants was one to one:  for those who don't like mathematics, that means three staff at the front of the room and three of us in attendance.

Regardless of the turnout, the meeting proved very informative.  When Ms. Kearns began describing changes to "Section 9: Procedures for the use of Victoria Park", she started by noting that mechanical rides can no longer sit on the grass (instead they need to situate on the road), and trailers and vehicles must also locate on the road or another paved surface.    This all provides relief for the much-trampled grass in the park.

The bombshell followed:  EcoStations will henceforth only have two streams – garbage and recycling.  Unless the event organizer requests the third stream (composting), the City of London will only provide EcoStations with two types of containers for garbage and recycling, and event organizers no longer need to provide staffing.  The standard garbage cans already situated in the park will have blue bins twinned during the festival, with emptying of both a duty of the City.  Emptying the (two or three) bins at the EcoStations remain the responsibility of the event organizer.

When I asked for the reasoning behind removing the compost stream, Mr. Stafford explained that the original idea of having the EcoStations—with three streams and volunteers—came with anticipation of a green-bin program forthcoming by the City.  Volunteers in the EcoStations instruct festival-goers how to dispose of waste properly into three streams so that residents can repeat the same process at home:  garbage can, blue box, and green bin.  London citizens become more aware of the three-stream process and don't have to think as much about it when bringing in the green-bin program.  Pure and simple, no?

Now with no green-bin program on the horizon (the pilot project in Pond Mills concluded nearly a year ago and the current council appears to have no plans to implement a city-wide program), the staff conclusion aligns with not implementing green bins rather than continuing to make a progressive step toward waste diversion at these festivals.  The policy will continue to require one EcoStation for every four food vendors.  The City provides everything included in the EcoStations, while the event operator used to staff them (no longer a requirement).

Mr. Stafford also noted too much cross-contamination of materials for reaching the decision, with the efforts and costs going into the three-stream system not giving desired results.  They have decided to not look at re-introducing the third stream for composting until the City implements green bins (i.e. following the City's garbage-collection policy).

My final question to the staff members asked about where the compost went after collection.  Mr. Stafford didn't know for certain, but knew that the compostables went to an appropriate collection site (not Jay Stanford's backyard!), and promised to get the information to me.

I encourage the festival organizers to request the three-stream EcoStations going forward, while also continuing to recruit volunteers to run them.  The learning process must continue, lest the lessons of the past seven festival seasons become for naught.  This important initiative must not die because of inaction at City council to implement green bins.

Other topics included noise levels in Victoria and Harris Parks, which I shall cover in a future post.