qathet Regional District (qRD) directors are recommending that organics be processed at the waste transfer station of the resource recovery centre, discontinuing the Sunshine Disposal drop-off.
At a qRD committee of the whole meeting, directors considered a recommendation that the board direct staff to discontinue the organics pilot program operations at the Sunshine Disposal facility and consolidate operations at the resource recovery centre.
According to a staff report, since 2016, qRD has provided free compostable food and yard waste (organics) drop-off at several locations in the region, including the Town Centre recycling depot, Tla’amin community recycling depot, and Sunshine Disposal on Franklin Avenue. All organic material collected was, and continues to be, transported by contractors to Salish Soils in Sechelt.
Manager of environmental services Jason Kouwenhoven said the pilot program has involved food and yard waste drop-off from residential properties, as well as food waste from commercial properties. He added that last year, City of Powell River initiated full-scale curbside organics collection, with food and yard waste co-mingled.
“Overall, what the report is proposing is not to change materials; we are just proposing moving one of those collection sites from a private contractor’s site to qRD’s resource recovery centre,” said Kouwenhoven. “We’ve been operating with Sunshine Disposal quite successfully since 2016, so there are some habits formed there – people will be used to going there. We need to communicate that change.
“We are not proposing material changes, we are not proposing tipping fees, we are just proposing a location change.”
Kouwenhoven said the organics drop-off at Sunshine Disposal is only three days a week, so now, organics drop-off can happen six days a week, anytime the resource recovery centre is open.
Kouwenhoven said the waste transfer station was built with half of it dedicated to organics drop-off. He said there are animal attractants in the organic material, so the materials such as food are contained inside at the waste transfer station’s organics bay. The yard waste material would be outside.
Kouwenhoven said the shipping containers with organics are leaving the waste transfer station once to twice per week. He said the expectation is, if operations are consolidated, that it will increase to three or four times per week.
“Based on our current projections, we are talking about 1,600 tonnes of organic material per year,” said Kouwenhoven. “That would mean probably every second day we would be shipping a container of organics down to Sechelt.”
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne asked about the proportion of yard waste in the organics collection.
“It seems to be a lot of extra organics,” said Gisborne. “How much is food diversion and how much is yard waste?”
Kouwenhoven said he would venture that 90 per cent of the organics volume is yard waste and 10 per cent is food waste.
The motion recommending that the board discontinue its relationship with Sunshine Disposal was carried unanimously. The operating agreement with Sunshine Disposal has now expired, according to the staff report.
When asked by the Peak about whether organics would have to traverse through the waste transfer station’s weigh scale, Kouwenhoven said organics would be weighed, but there would be no charge for disposing of it.
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