Before making a final decision, the Capital Regional District is looking for short- to medium-term options to deal with the ever-growing amount of collected kitchen food scraps.
Members of the CRD’s environmental services committee are recommending $85,000 be spent to upgrade and expand a transfer station for food scraps at the Hartland landfill.
The committee also recommends delaying a planned 20 per cent surcharge on kitchen scraps, which was scheduled to kick in at the dump in January, until a processing plan is in place.
Meanwhile, tenders will be issued to solicit options to haul and process kitchen scraps from the expanded Hartland transfer station for up to two years, as the region looks for a permanent solution.
Committee members decided against issuing a request for proposal for possible private-public partnership development of a compost facility at the landfill until CRD staff have an opportunity to report later this month on possible synergies between the processing of food scraps and treatment of sewage sludge at Hartland.
In an effort to prolong the life of Hartland, the CRD decided to ban dumping of food scraps at the landfill as of January 2015. It had planned to introduce the surcharge on loads containing food scraps as of Jan. 1, 2014. But as more organic materials are being separated by residents, then collected by municipalities and private haulers, the options for processing them are disappearing.
The region’s only licensed composter, Foundation Organics in Central Saanich, had its CRD contract and recycler licence pulled because of hundreds of complaints about litter and odours. The company had been processing organics collected in View Royal, Oak Bay and Victoria.
Food scraps collected in Greater Victoria are being trucked over the Malahat to Fisher Road Holdings in Cobble Hill, where the CRD is paying a premium to have them processed. That operation is nearing its licensed capacity.
Early in the new year, Saanich is scheduled to start collecting separated kitchen scraps from households. Oak Bay’s pilot scrap-collection program — which currently covers one-sixth of the municipality — is to be expanded to the entire district.
Meanwhile, Michell Brothers Farm, which had won a five-year, $4.7-million contract to process kitchen scraps from Saanich beginning next year, has notified the municipality that it won’t proceed, given the controversy surrounding Foundation Organics.
CRD directors have decided as an interim measure to landfill excess food scraps that can’t be composted.
