The Capital Regional District has to start planning to deal locally with tonnes of food scraps that are being collected in Greater Victoria, says chairman Alastair Bryson.
“I want to see us coming up with a vision of how we’re going to have the capacity within the Capital Regional District for the long-term processing of source-separated organics,” Bryson said.
Bryson made the comments after the CRD’s environmental services committee reviewed a staff report on possible synergies in processing both food scraps and treating sewage sludge at the Hartland Landfill site.
The report suggests there could be shared infrastructure and service opportunities in areas such as environmental monitoring, administration, security and use of equipment such as weigh scales. There would also be potential to share use of landfill gas. Commingling food scraps and sludge for processing is not an option at this time.
CRD politicians had suggested exploring ways to combine garbage and kitchen scraps with sewage sludge as part of an incinerator project that the civilian sewage commission says will have to be built to burn sewage sludge.
But the province has said it will not allow the CRD to consider a waste-to-energy plant for solid waste unless its diversion rate at Hartland exceeds 70 per cent. It’s currently 50 per cent.
Further, the CRD board has reaffirmed that it will not apply treated biosolids on land.
The committee recommended staff continue to look at opportunities for integrated resource recovery.
CRD staff anticipate that by 2015, when the region’s ban on food scraps at the landfill kicks in, 30,000 tonnes of scraps a year will be collected. But there are few local processing options.
Foundation Organics, the only licensed facility in the capital region, was handling scraps from Oak Bay, Victoria and View Royal until the CRD suspended its interim contract and recycler licence after hundreds of complaints about odour and litter. The CRD is shipping organics to Fisher Road Recycling in Cobble Hill.
Saanich just signed a $4.85-million, five-year contract with D.L. Bins (Fisher Road Recycling) to process the food scraps it will start collecting next year.
