On September 15, Cote Saint-Luc residents began receiving their new brown bins as part of phase 2 of the Organic Waste Collection program. Since then and continuing for the next few weeks, nearly 5000 homes will receive their new bin which includes a kitchen collector, a DVD, instructional material and sample compostable bags.
During the week of October 20, Cote Saint-Luc will become the first city on the Island of Montreal and one of the only cities in the province to offer curbside organic waste collection to all homes and duplexes. Instead of separating their garbage two ways (recycling and garbage), residents will now separate it three ways (recycling, garbage and organic waste).
After completing a year long pilot of 500 homes, Cote Saint-Luc has had several hurdles or complaints that we are working on overcoming. The first complaint was regarding the limited availability of certified compostable bags in the Cote Saint-Luc area. After approaching several stores, the bags are now available at 10 locations in CSL and the surrounding area:
IGA, Pharmpaprix and Dollarama (Cavendish Mall)
IGA, Jean-Coutu and Dollaram (CSL Shopping Centre)
Wal-Mart (Decarie & Jean-Talon)
Reno-Depot (St. Jacques St.)
City Hall (5801 Cavendish Blvd.)
Public Works Yard (7001 Mackle Rd.)
I am also currently in discussion with Loblaws and the Caldwell grocery stores to have the compostable bags available there as well. If there are other stores, where the bags should be available, please let me know. For food waste, residents can use certified compostable bags, paper bags or wrap their organic waste in newspaper before putting it in the brown bin for health and hygiene reasons. Garden waste can be put directly in the brown bins without any bags.
The second complaint has been with the size of the brown bin. For the first phase of the brown bin program involving 500 homes, all resident received 46.5L bins. These were the bins originally used by the homes in the Greater Toronto Area. Many homes found that they were too small and couldn't hold their garden waste.We also looked at the example of the City of Toronto, that decided to switch their organic waste bins for a larger size. CSL decided to go with 240L bins (similar to Halifax and many cities in Quebec) for phase 2 of the program and distribute the larger bins to all the homes in the pilot area. The new bins should be large enough to hold the organic waste from an average family aside from a few weeks during the peak leaf collection season when residents can place leaves in compostable bags next to their brown bins. At the same time, we put the new bins on display at all city facilities for about a month and residents had the choice to choose smaller bins, which we recommended for seniors or people with limited mobility.
The third problem has been with gardeners that are contracted by residents to mow their lawns and remove leaves. Most are still using black or orange plastic bags which are not compostable. the City of Cote Saint-Luc is holding a meeting with gardeners on October 7 to explain to them that we want them to put the garden waste directly in the brown bins of the homes they are paid to landscape or use compostable bags. We are looking into licensing gardeners who work within the boundaries of CSL. If gardeners don't abide by the rules and requirements of the organic waste collection, they will lose their license.
The fourth problem that we are working on solving is regarding funding for the program. So far, CSL is paying for the organic waste collection through funds from its regular budget. The provincial government set up a special fund for cities doing environmental initiatives. CSL's share of the fund is over $416,000. This would be enough to cover the entire budget of the Brown Bin Program and will be enough to pay for new blue bins for every home next year as CSL aims to improve its environmental performance. The only problem is that CSL has yet to receive even a cent of this money. We along with the other demerged cities on the Island of Montreal are the only cities that have not yet received their funds and have been waiting for over two years now. At the same time, over the last two years, the city of Montreal has received over $21.4 million and is only now instituting garden waste collection (food waste is not yet acceptable). Apparently a deal has been reached between the provincial ministry of environment, Montreal and the demerged municipalities for us to finally get the money that we are owed, but we are still waiting.
The fifth problem is with respect to finding a permanent treatment site. Originally CSL was sending its organic waste to a treatment site in St-Basile-Le-Grand operated by GSI Environment. In April, the provincial ministry of environment sent an inspector to our treatment site and issued them with a fine which in effect, shut them down. The public works department had less than a week to find a new site. Thankfully the City of Montreal has assisted us by allowing CSL to temporarily send our organic waste to the St-Michel (Miron Quarry) site in the east end of Montreal. We are still working on finding a permanent site and are hoping that Montreal will continue to help us. Montreal is currently working on a tender for organic waste treatment for CSL, Westmount and the Plateau Borough which are following our lead with curbside organic waste pilots. According to the current structure imposed by the provincial government, the demerged city (CSL) is responsible for the collection and transport of waste while the agglomeration (Montreal) is responsible for treatment. We are glad Montreal is taking their responsibility and we hope they will consult with us. Our recommendation is for Montreal to set up many smaller treatment sites, similar to the composter used at Concordia University's Loyola Campus.
The Cote Saint-Luc example has proved that residents are ready and willing to take the next step in recycling by including organic waste. This new initiative can be organized easily and with limited budgets. We are ready to help other cities follow our lead and have offered our services at the provincial level (to the Commission on Transport and the Environment on February 6) and to Montreal (to the Transport and Environment Commission of the Agglomeration of Montreal on June 9).
I am copying our key recommendations made on June 9, 2008 with respect to the Montreal Agglomeration's plan on the environment (PDGMR). For a look at the complete presentation, click here.
Recommendation 1a: In keeping with the spirit of the purpose of the PDGMR which is autonomie sectorielle, meaning treating your waste on the territory where it was created the plan should promote treatment of waste at the most local level wherever possible. This could include delegating authority and finances to the local municipality as was done with snow removal on arterial roads.
Recommendation 1b: Recognize the major role played by the boroughs and municipalities and ensure their budgets reflect this role.
Recommendation 2: The redevances must be used for the purpose for which it was intended, to finance innovative waste management initiatives, not to cover the cost of basic waste operations.
Recommendation 3: A forum of island-wide municipal representatives including Montreal and the reconstituted municipalities should be set to promote and share best practices with respect to the environment.
Recommendation 4: A special green fund should be set up for waste management to reward boroughs and cities that use best practices and achieve large gains in waste diversion.
Recommendation 5: The plan should set the target of diversion rate of at least 60% for all recyclable material by 2012, including organic waste.
Recommendation 6: The agglomeration should provide within six months a site for the disposal of food and yard waste collected by local municipalities (ie, Côte Saint-Luc, Westmount and Pointe-Claire) or finance the purchase and installation of a self-contained unit for organic waste treatment in situ (eg, Hot Rot).
Recommendation 7: If the agglomeration of Montreal cannot provide an adequate, permanent licensed site for organic waste treatment within the next six months, it must delegate their authority and the appropriate financing on waste treatment to the local municipality.
Recommendation 8: The agglomeration government should work with industry and business associations throughout the island to agree upon a timetable for all businesses on the island to transition from plastic bags to compostable or paper bags (eg, SAQ, see Annex C)
Recommendation 9: The agglomeration of Montreal needs to ban the use of plastic bags for the collection of leaf and garden waste. The agglomeration government should ensure that paper and compostable bags are available at retail locations and municipal facilities throughout the island.
Recommendation 10: The agglomeration of Montreal needs to work with industry to encourage the implementation of a facility to recycle type 6 plastic.
Recommendation 11: If it is not possible to create a facility that can recycle type 6 plastic, the agglomeration of Montreal needs to work with industry and business associations throughout the island to agree upon a timetable for to phase out permanently type 6 plastic for household products.
Recommendation 12: The Agglomeration government needs to work with the City of Côte Saint-Luc and other cities that have implemented organic waste collection to produce a turnkey (clé en main) plan that municipalities and boroughs can easily follow to implement their own curbside organic waste collection program.
Recommendation 13: The agglomeration of Montreal must increase the amount of public awareness through a widespread media campaign on waste management including more detailed education on what is and isn’t recyclable and organic waste collection.
Recommendation 14: The plan must promote and encourage local business enterprises to implement new technologies transform, sell, recycle and exchange all the resources which result from post-consumer waste.
Recommendation 15: Municipalities on the island of Montreal should adopt buy green policies to increase the demand for products made from recycled materials and post-consumer waste.
If you'd like more information about the program, or to volunteer with the implementation, please contact me at serdelyi@cotesaintluc.org
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Cote Saint-Luc Presents Brown Bin Program at the National Assembly
On February 6, fellow Councillor Mitchell Brownstein and I presented a brief on the Brown Bin Organic Waste Collection Program to the Quebec Transport and Environment Commission. The commission which is made up of 12 members of the National Assembly is working on the next 10 year plan for waste management in Quebec. The point of the brief was to show that setting up an organic waste collection program is relatively easy to start, less costly than many believe and popular with residents.
Participation rate for the project remains around 85% and we have achieved an estimated diversion rate of 55% for the organic waste. The diversion rate means the percent of waste that is diverted from landfill, that instead is turned into compost. The actual diversion rate for Cote Saint-Luc's organic waste was 16% in 2004, which we assume remained roughly constant until the pilot began last year (The average for the province of Quebec is 8%). To put it in perspective, in a matter of 5 months since the pilot project began, we have more than tripled the diversion rate of organic waste. We hope to be one of the first cities in Quebec to reach the government's goal of 60% diversion. Cote Saint-Luc plans on expanding the organic waste collection program to all the single-family homes and duplexes in Quebec in the fall of this year.
The feedback from members of all three provincial parties was very positive. The chairman of the committee, D'Arcy McGee MNA Lawrence Bergman, said, "When we see a project of this nature and with this type of success and given the fact that you did it without very much money—that you did more with less–it's incredible." Gerry Sklavounos, MNA for Laurier-Dorion, also praised Cote Saint-Luc on the initiative. "I think these initiatives are an excellent example for the rest of the province," Sklavounos said. Agnès Maltais, the MNA for Taschereau, said she thought the work done by Cote Saint-Luc was very important for Quebec." It is truly extraordinary to meet people like you who decide to engage the society like this in their municipality and which, I think, can move Quebec forward," Maltais said. "Bravo on what you are doing, Mr. Erdelyi, and on your stubbornness in moving Quebec forward. It's extraordinary."
You can see a copy of the brief in English or French, the bilingual annex (17 MB), draft transcript of the presentation and the video of the session.
Here are the seven recommendations that were in the brief, in order to facilitate implementation of organic waste programs in Quebec:
Participation rate for the project remains around 85% and we have achieved an estimated diversion rate of 55% for the organic waste. The diversion rate means the percent of waste that is diverted from landfill, that instead is turned into compost. The actual diversion rate for Cote Saint-Luc's organic waste was 16% in 2004, which we assume remained roughly constant until the pilot began last year (The average for the province of Quebec is 8%). To put it in perspective, in a matter of 5 months since the pilot project began, we have more than tripled the diversion rate of organic waste. We hope to be one of the first cities in Quebec to reach the government's goal of 60% diversion. Cote Saint-Luc plans on expanding the organic waste collection program to all the single-family homes and duplexes in Quebec in the fall of this year.
The feedback from members of all three provincial parties was very positive. The chairman of the committee, D'Arcy McGee MNA Lawrence Bergman, said, "When we see a project of this nature and with this type of success and given the fact that you did it without very much money—that you did more with less–it's incredible." Gerry Sklavounos, MNA for Laurier-Dorion, also praised Cote Saint-Luc on the initiative. "I think these initiatives are an excellent example for the rest of the province," Sklavounos said. Agnès Maltais, the MNA for Taschereau, said she thought the work done by Cote Saint-Luc was very important for Quebec." It is truly extraordinary to meet people like you who decide to engage the society like this in their municipality and which, I think, can move Quebec forward," Maltais said. "Bravo on what you are doing, Mr. Erdelyi, and on your stubbornness in moving Quebec forward. It's extraordinary."
You can see a copy of the brief in English or French, the bilingual annex (17 MB), draft transcript of the presentation and the video of the session.
Here are the seven recommendations that were in the brief, in order to facilitate implementation of organic waste programs in Quebec:
- Cities need to be supplied with a detailed template to facilitate implementation of an organic waste collection program.
- Money from Quebec government programs needs to be earmarked specifically for environmental initiatives and the government must ensure it is spent for these purposes.
- More education is needed for residents through a public information campaign on television, the Internet, and in newspapers.
- Compostable certification is needed for paper food packaging (i.e., fast-food or take-out packaging).
- The Quebec government needs to ensure that recyclable and compostable products are clearly marked and labeled.
- The Quebec government should work with industry and business associations throughout the province to agree upon a timetable for all businesses within the province to transition from plastic bags to compostable or paper bags.
- Grocery stores, food wholesalers and government facilities with industrial-size kitchens (i.e., hospitals and schools) should be obliged to send their organic waste for composting.
If you would like more information, or want to volunteer to help with the expansion of the project in Cote Saint-Luc, please contact me at serdelyi@cotesaintluc.org
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Organic Waste Collection Update After Six Weeks
It has been over 6 weeks since the Brown Bin Organic Waste Collection pilot began and so far it is a huge success. The participation rate began at 75% and has reached 85%. The tonnage has almost tripled since the first week and we are approaching the per capita level of collection of other communities like Toronto that have been collecting organic waste for years. After 6 weeks, we are diverting about 60% of the organic waste produced by the 500 pilot homes from going to landfill.
Here's a list of the amount of organic waste collected in Metric Tonnes: (1 MT = 1000kg = 2205 lbs)
Week 1 - Sept. 25 - 1.2 MT
Week 2 - Oct. 2 - 1.9 MT
Week 3 - Oct. 9 - 2.1 MT
Week 4 - Oct. 16 - 2.4 MT
Week 5 - Oct. 23 - 2.9 MT
Week 6 - Oct. 30 - 3.5 MT
My task for the last few weeks has been to ensure that the compostable bags are available at local stores in the Cote Saint-Luc area. The bags are now available at both IGA stores, Rona, and Pharmaprix in Cote Saint-Luc. They are also available at the Wal-Mart in NDG. The city is working with the local stores to have signage up that reminds people which bags can be used with the pilot program. Residents can purchase the bags at Cote Saint-Luc City Hall and Public Works offices during business hours. Residents can get a free pack of 6 large compostable bags for leaf collection provided by the city. They can trade their brown bin at no extra cost for one of two larger sizes (120L or 240L) or purchase a second brown bin ($16) or kitchen collector ($4) at the city's public works offices.
Some of the problems that we've experienced at first were that some residents used incorrect bags and some were putting recyclable items such as paper and plastic in the brown bin. Residents must use paper or compostable bags because regular plastic bags are not biodegradable and take 100s of years to break down. Residents should put their clean paper, cans, bottles, and recyclable plastics in the blue bin.
So far the coverage of the Brown Bin Program has been very good. Stories have appeared in The Gazette, on CTV, CBC, TQS, in The Chronicle, Suburban, La Presse, on CJAD, 940 News and INFO690. Oriana Familiar, CSL's Environment and Waste Technician, and I have done a few presentations on the program for various groups.
I've also been following the news in the paper of Montreal's plans to introduce organic waste collection over the next few years. I wonder how long it will take for Montreal to implement their plan and if they will ask Cote Saint-Luc about our experience with organic waste collection.
We are preparing a newsletter for residents in the Brown Bin Pilot Zone that will give them an update as to how it's going. That will be followed a few months later by a survey which will be used as a basis for expanding to the second phase of the program which will involve all the single-family homes in CSL, if funding is available. We are also planning on visiting some of the 10-15% of the residences that are not participating to find out why and figure out what we can do to help them.
If you have any questions about the program, you can visit the city's ecological website at http://www.ecocsl.org/ or you can reach me at serdelyi@cotesaintluc.org.
Here's a list of the amount of organic waste collected in Metric Tonnes: (1 MT = 1000kg = 2205 lbs)
Week 1 - Sept. 25 - 1.2 MT
Week 2 - Oct. 2 - 1.9 MT
Week 3 - Oct. 9 - 2.1 MT
Week 4 - Oct. 16 - 2.4 MT
Week 5 - Oct. 23 - 2.9 MT
Week 6 - Oct. 30 - 3.5 MT
My task for the last few weeks has been to ensure that the compostable bags are available at local stores in the Cote Saint-Luc area. The bags are now available at both IGA stores, Rona, and Pharmaprix in Cote Saint-Luc. They are also available at the Wal-Mart in NDG. The city is working with the local stores to have signage up that reminds people which bags can be used with the pilot program. Residents can purchase the bags at Cote Saint-Luc City Hall and Public Works offices during business hours. Residents can get a free pack of 6 large compostable bags for leaf collection provided by the city. They can trade their brown bin at no extra cost for one of two larger sizes (120L or 240L) or purchase a second brown bin ($16) or kitchen collector ($4) at the city's public works offices.
Some of the problems that we've experienced at first were that some residents used incorrect bags and some were putting recyclable items such as paper and plastic in the brown bin. Residents must use paper or compostable bags because regular plastic bags are not biodegradable and take 100s of years to break down. Residents should put their clean paper, cans, bottles, and recyclable plastics in the blue bin.
So far the coverage of the Brown Bin Program has been very good. Stories have appeared in The Gazette, on CTV, CBC, TQS, in The Chronicle, Suburban, La Presse, on CJAD, 940 News and INFO690. Oriana Familiar, CSL's Environment and Waste Technician, and I have done a few presentations on the program for various groups.
I've also been following the news in the paper of Montreal's plans to introduce organic waste collection over the next few years. I wonder how long it will take for Montreal to implement their plan and if they will ask Cote Saint-Luc about our experience with organic waste collection.
We are preparing a newsletter for residents in the Brown Bin Pilot Zone that will give them an update as to how it's going. That will be followed a few months later by a survey which will be used as a basis for expanding to the second phase of the program which will involve all the single-family homes in CSL, if funding is available. We are also planning on visiting some of the 10-15% of the residences that are not participating to find out why and figure out what we can do to help them.
If you have any questions about the program, you can visit the city's ecological website at http://www.ecocsl.org/ or you can reach me at serdelyi@cotesaintluc.org.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Brown Bin Program Background
This blog will give the background information as to how the Brown Bin Program came to fruition. It has been over a year since I first got the idea to create a pilot project for door-to-door organic waste collection in Cote Saint-Luc.
In early June of 2006, while at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference in Montreal, I visited a booth dealing with door-to-door organic waste collection. I received some pamphlets and DVDs for cities with these types of composting programs. These cities supplied residents with a small kitchen collector bin (which can be placed on the kitchen counter or under the sink) and larger outdoor bin (which can be placed where you keep your regular garbage can). Residents were asked to separate their food waste (fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, etc...) soiled paper (paper towels, tissues, popcorn bags, take-out bags, etc...) and garden waste (small plants, leaves, grass clippings, etc...).
Participants in the program placed their separated organic waste in their kitchen collector and when it was full transferred the waste to the larger outdoor bin which they placed on the curb on their respective collection day. The organic waste was then collected by the city where it was brought to a special site to be composted and turned into fertilizer which can be used for gardening or landscaping.
After speaking to representatives in Toronto, Markham, Durham Region, and Halifax, where full scale projects exists, I came up with a three phase plan. Phase 1 involved setting up a pilot with a few hundred homes; phase 2 was expanding the door-to-door organic collection to all single-family homes and duplexes and phase 3 involves expanding the project to all high-rise buildings in Cote Saint-Luc. I presented a plan to the rest of council which unanimously approved the plan in principle. I went on to present the plan at my local District 4 Advisory Meeting, where the response was generally very positive.
There were several logistical issues that needed to be dealt with. The biggest one was how would the city collect the organic waste from its residents and transport it to the treatment site, which was different from the land-fill site. At that time in late 2006, Cote Saint-Luc's garbage was collected by a private contractor. To ask the contractor to dedicate a truck to collect only organic waste and bring it to a special site would have been difficult, though not impossible. Around the time, Cote Saint-Luc and many of its neighbour's went to tender for the waste collection and transport for a new contract scheduled to begin in January 2007. When the tenders were opened, we found out that the lowest price was almost $1 million for 2007 which was more than double the approximately $450,000 rate for 2006.
Left in a dilemma, CSL's City Manager and Director of Public Works came up with an excellent plan where the city would buy garbage trucks and hire workers to collect and transport the waste ourselves. It would end up costing the city much less than $1 million per year. Part of the savings generated by this plan would be used to fund expanding recycling to all apartment buildings and condos and to fund the pilot composting project.
Other logistical issues that had to be dealt with included:
Which staff would be responsible for the program?
When to start the pilot?
What types of bins to use?
What colour should the bin be?
Where to send the organic waste?
What items we would accept?
What types of bags would we accept?
How many and which homes would participate in the pilot?
How would we get the message out to residents?
What instructional material we would use?
Councillor Dida Berku, responsible for the environment portfolio, proposed hiring an Environmental Waste Technician to be responsible for expanding recycling to all high rises and for implementing the pilot composting program. This was approved by the city council. It was decided to start the project in late summer / early fall, to give us time to properly plan all the details of the project. The brown bin kit will be distributed to homes the week of September 17 and the first collection will be on Tuesday, September 25, 2007. After looking at different sizes of bins, it was decided to go with a 7.5L kitchen collector and a 46.5L brown bin. The 46.5L brown bin comes with a metal latch that is virtually raccoon proof. The city is in the process of acquiring 100 larger brown bins (120L and 240L) for residents that find the bin is too small. In that case, you can bring your brown bin to the public works yard during operating hours and exchange it for a larger bin (while supplies last).
For the colour of the bin, most other provinces are using green bins for organic waste collection. Originally CSL was going to also use green bins but it was felt that it would be confusing with many areas in Montreal using green bins for recycling. Brown was the colour decided by Recyc-Quebec, the Quebec Government's recycling body, which is what CSL ended up going with.
The original choice, the St-Michel site (Miron Quarry) takes only compostable leaves during seasonal collection. GSI Environment, which treats the organic waste for many cities in Ontario and the small pilot project in Pointe-Claire, was chosen to be the treatment site operator. The organic waste will be brought to a special site on the South Shore where it will be turned into compost. The next question was what items to accept from participants. It was decided to accept virtually all organic matter, with some exceptions such diapers because they contain some organic and some plastic. To see an information card of what's accepted click here.
Regarding the bags, there were four options that were looked into: wrapping the food in newspaper, using paper bags, special compostable bags and grocery store plastic bags. It was decided to accept the first 3 options but not grocery store plastic bags. Though they are readily available, grocery bags take 100s of years to decompose therefore they would have to be removed at a large cost increase. The options that CSL has chosen, newspaper, paper bags and compostable bags all decompose within a few months under composting conditions. Every home participating in the pilot will receive some sample compostable bags which will be available in local stores and in city hall for purchase. The compostable bags are made of corn starch and are 100% biodegradable. They must be either certified as compostable and have either the US or European certification. At this time, there is no Canadian certification. For more details on the bags, and other FAQ about the program, click here.
The average number of homes a garbage truck in CSL collects waste from is 500 at which point the truck must empty their load. For this reason it was decided to start the pilot with 500 homes. The homes all had to have the same waste collection days in order not cause the cost of labour to increase so homes were chosen from Districts 4 & 5. Also, the location the organic waste is transported to had to be roughly the same distance from CSL. Currently CSL's garbage is brought to the South Shore where it is dumped. As mentioned above, the organic waste will also be transported to a location on the South Shore. For the 500 homes, brown bin organic collection and blue bin recycling will both take place on Tuesday. On Friday will be regular garbage.
In order to get the message out, we are going door-to-door to visit all the 500 homes and explain to them the changes. Going to visit the homes are volunteers from the CSL EcoAction Committee, Green Patrollers hired as summer students, Councillor Allan Levine, Councillor Dida Berku and myself. So far we have visited more than 2/3 of the homes and the plan is to finish within the next few days, weather permitting. The feedback has been extremely positive so far from residents who are generally excited about being part of the pilot project. Many are already familiar with door-to-door composting from relatives in the Greater Toronto area or from reading articles in the local paper. A Brown Bin Orientation will take place on the evening of Thursday August 23, 2007 at Le Waldorf Residence.
Each resident will receive an introductory letter (to be distributed in August), an instruction card which will be laminated listing the key points, a pamphlet with frequently asked questions, and a DVD with a 5-10 min short film explaining the process. We are also looking into preparing a sticker to go on the lid of the kitchen collector with the key points listed. The bins, instructional material, and sample compostable bags will be arriving the last week of August / first week of September. At which point, all the materials will be placed in the brown bin which will be delivered to the 500 homes during the week of September 17. the first collection will be on Tuesday, September 25. Starting on that date and every Tuesday that follows residents only blue bins and brown bins will be collected. If residents have too much organic waste, they can use paper or compostable bags which they can put beside their brown bin.
The volunteers on the EcoAction Committee and city workers will occasionally count how many residents are putting out brown bins to get an idea of the participation rate. We will get feedback from our treatment site operator on whether residents are following the rules correctly with respect to what they are putting in the brown bin. The better the quality of the compost (ie very few or no contaniments), the cheaper the treatment price will be for future years. We will also send out a survey next year to gauge the opinion of participants in the pilot to make improvements before beginning phase 2.
Assuming the pilot is a success, the plan is to expand the organic waste collection to all homes and duplexes in the fall of 2008. The problem so far is that CSL is paying for the project completely from their own budget. The provincial government has set up special fund for cities that are doing innovative projects with respect to the environment. So far CSL should have received roughly $175,000 but instead the Montreal Agglomeration Council has received the money and not passed it on to CSL. That amount would more than cover the costs of purchasing large Blue Bins for all high rises and Brown Bins for all homes and duplexes in CSL. By introducing d0or-to-door organic waste collection, and expanding recycling in all high rise buildings, CSL could be one of the first cities in the province to reach the 60% waste diversion goal. We are hoping the Agglo will reconsider their decision and pass on the money to CSL and all the demerged cities to free up funding for more innovative projects. So far, on the Island of Montreal, only CSL and Pointe-Claire have brown bin pilot projects, with Pointe-Claire's also paid for by their city budget.
A few months ago I went to visit the garbage dump at the St-Michel site (Miron Quarry) and was shocked and amazed by what I saw. It is a site about the same size as Mount-Royal Park. It began taking garbage about 40 years ago, and at some points now it is 270 feet deep, or about 27 stories deep with garbage. Though it is not full the site will be closed within the next few years. Already most garbage from the island of Montreal is shipped off-island and the sites keep getting further and further away as the land-fill sites progressively fill up.
The process of composting produces 25 times less greenhouse gases and allows for the waste to be turned into useful compost within a year. By participating in this program you can be proud to know that you're making CSL an even better place to live while helping to improve the environment for future generations.
In early June of 2006, while at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference in Montreal, I visited a booth dealing with door-to-door organic waste collection. I received some pamphlets and DVDs for cities with these types of composting programs. These cities supplied residents with a small kitchen collector bin (which can be placed on the kitchen counter or under the sink) and larger outdoor bin (which can be placed where you keep your regular garbage can). Residents were asked to separate their food waste (fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, etc...) soiled paper (paper towels, tissues, popcorn bags, take-out bags, etc...) and garden waste (small plants, leaves, grass clippings, etc...).
Participants in the program placed their separated organic waste in their kitchen collector and when it was full transferred the waste to the larger outdoor bin which they placed on the curb on their respective collection day. The organic waste was then collected by the city where it was brought to a special site to be composted and turned into fertilizer which can be used for gardening or landscaping.
After speaking to representatives in Toronto, Markham, Durham Region, and Halifax, where full scale projects exists, I came up with a three phase plan. Phase 1 involved setting up a pilot with a few hundred homes; phase 2 was expanding the door-to-door organic collection to all single-family homes and duplexes and phase 3 involves expanding the project to all high-rise buildings in Cote Saint-Luc. I presented a plan to the rest of council which unanimously approved the plan in principle. I went on to present the plan at my local District 4 Advisory Meeting, where the response was generally very positive.
There were several logistical issues that needed to be dealt with. The biggest one was how would the city collect the organic waste from its residents and transport it to the treatment site, which was different from the land-fill site. At that time in late 2006, Cote Saint-Luc's garbage was collected by a private contractor. To ask the contractor to dedicate a truck to collect only organic waste and bring it to a special site would have been difficult, though not impossible. Around the time, Cote Saint-Luc and many of its neighbour's went to tender for the waste collection and transport for a new contract scheduled to begin in January 2007. When the tenders were opened, we found out that the lowest price was almost $1 million for 2007 which was more than double the approximately $450,000 rate for 2006.
Left in a dilemma, CSL's City Manager and Director of Public Works came up with an excellent plan where the city would buy garbage trucks and hire workers to collect and transport the waste ourselves. It would end up costing the city much less than $1 million per year. Part of the savings generated by this plan would be used to fund expanding recycling to all apartment buildings and condos and to fund the pilot composting project.
Other logistical issues that had to be dealt with included:
Which staff would be responsible for the program?
When to start the pilot?
What types of bins to use?
What colour should the bin be?
Where to send the organic waste?
What items we would accept?
What types of bags would we accept?
How many and which homes would participate in the pilot?
How would we get the message out to residents?
What instructional material we would use?
Councillor Dida Berku, responsible for the environment portfolio, proposed hiring an Environmental Waste Technician to be responsible for expanding recycling to all high rises and for implementing the pilot composting program. This was approved by the city council. It was decided to start the project in late summer / early fall, to give us time to properly plan all the details of the project. The brown bin kit will be distributed to homes the week of September 17 and the first collection will be on Tuesday, September 25, 2007. After looking at different sizes of bins, it was decided to go with a 7.5L kitchen collector and a 46.5L brown bin. The 46.5L brown bin comes with a metal latch that is virtually raccoon proof. The city is in the process of acquiring 100 larger brown bins (120L and 240L) for residents that find the bin is too small. In that case, you can bring your brown bin to the public works yard during operating hours and exchange it for a larger bin (while supplies last).
For the colour of the bin, most other provinces are using green bins for organic waste collection. Originally CSL was going to also use green bins but it was felt that it would be confusing with many areas in Montreal using green bins for recycling. Brown was the colour decided by Recyc-Quebec, the Quebec Government's recycling body, which is what CSL ended up going with.
The original choice, the St-Michel site (Miron Quarry) takes only compostable leaves during seasonal collection. GSI Environment, which treats the organic waste for many cities in Ontario and the small pilot project in Pointe-Claire, was chosen to be the treatment site operator. The organic waste will be brought to a special site on the South Shore where it will be turned into compost. The next question was what items to accept from participants. It was decided to accept virtually all organic matter, with some exceptions such diapers because they contain some organic and some plastic. To see an information card of what's accepted click here.
Regarding the bags, there were four options that were looked into: wrapping the food in newspaper, using paper bags, special compostable bags and grocery store plastic bags. It was decided to accept the first 3 options but not grocery store plastic bags. Though they are readily available, grocery bags take 100s of years to decompose therefore they would have to be removed at a large cost increase. The options that CSL has chosen, newspaper, paper bags and compostable bags all decompose within a few months under composting conditions. Every home participating in the pilot will receive some sample compostable bags which will be available in local stores and in city hall for purchase. The compostable bags are made of corn starch and are 100% biodegradable. They must be either certified as compostable and have either the US or European certification. At this time, there is no Canadian certification. For more details on the bags, and other FAQ about the program, click here.
The average number of homes a garbage truck in CSL collects waste from is 500 at which point the truck must empty their load. For this reason it was decided to start the pilot with 500 homes. The homes all had to have the same waste collection days in order not cause the cost of labour to increase so homes were chosen from Districts 4 & 5. Also, the location the organic waste is transported to had to be roughly the same distance from CSL. Currently CSL's garbage is brought to the South Shore where it is dumped. As mentioned above, the organic waste will also be transported to a location on the South Shore. For the 500 homes, brown bin organic collection and blue bin recycling will both take place on Tuesday. On Friday will be regular garbage.
In order to get the message out, we are going door-to-door to visit all the 500 homes and explain to them the changes. Going to visit the homes are volunteers from the CSL EcoAction Committee, Green Patrollers hired as summer students, Councillor Allan Levine, Councillor Dida Berku and myself. So far we have visited more than 2/3 of the homes and the plan is to finish within the next few days, weather permitting. The feedback has been extremely positive so far from residents who are generally excited about being part of the pilot project. Many are already familiar with door-to-door composting from relatives in the Greater Toronto area or from reading articles in the local paper. A Brown Bin Orientation will take place on the evening of Thursday August 23, 2007 at Le Waldorf Residence.
Each resident will receive an introductory letter (to be distributed in August), an instruction card which will be laminated listing the key points, a pamphlet with frequently asked questions, and a DVD with a 5-10 min short film explaining the process. We are also looking into preparing a sticker to go on the lid of the kitchen collector with the key points listed. The bins, instructional material, and sample compostable bags will be arriving the last week of August / first week of September. At which point, all the materials will be placed in the brown bin which will be delivered to the 500 homes during the week of September 17. the first collection will be on Tuesday, September 25. Starting on that date and every Tuesday that follows residents only blue bins and brown bins will be collected. If residents have too much organic waste, they can use paper or compostable bags which they can put beside their brown bin.
The volunteers on the EcoAction Committee and city workers will occasionally count how many residents are putting out brown bins to get an idea of the participation rate. We will get feedback from our treatment site operator on whether residents are following the rules correctly with respect to what they are putting in the brown bin. The better the quality of the compost (ie very few or no contaniments), the cheaper the treatment price will be for future years. We will also send out a survey next year to gauge the opinion of participants in the pilot to make improvements before beginning phase 2.
Assuming the pilot is a success, the plan is to expand the organic waste collection to all homes and duplexes in the fall of 2008. The problem so far is that CSL is paying for the project completely from their own budget. The provincial government has set up special fund for cities that are doing innovative projects with respect to the environment. So far CSL should have received roughly $175,000 but instead the Montreal Agglomeration Council has received the money and not passed it on to CSL. That amount would more than cover the costs of purchasing large Blue Bins for all high rises and Brown Bins for all homes and duplexes in CSL. By introducing d0or-to-door organic waste collection, and expanding recycling in all high rise buildings, CSL could be one of the first cities in the province to reach the 60% waste diversion goal. We are hoping the Agglo will reconsider their decision and pass on the money to CSL and all the demerged cities to free up funding for more innovative projects. So far, on the Island of Montreal, only CSL and Pointe-Claire have brown bin pilot projects, with Pointe-Claire's also paid for by their city budget.
A few months ago I went to visit the garbage dump at the St-Michel site (Miron Quarry) and was shocked and amazed by what I saw. It is a site about the same size as Mount-Royal Park. It began taking garbage about 40 years ago, and at some points now it is 270 feet deep, or about 27 stories deep with garbage. Though it is not full the site will be closed within the next few years. Already most garbage from the island of Montreal is shipped off-island and the sites keep getting further and further away as the land-fill sites progressively fill up.
The process of composting produces 25 times less greenhouse gases and allows for the waste to be turned into useful compost within a year. By participating in this program you can be proud to know that you're making CSL an even better place to live while helping to improve the environment for future generations.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
First Blog
Hello everyone.
This is my first blog. I will try to regularly update this page with my thoughts on happenings in the City of Cote Saint-Luc or that affect its residents.
Please use this blog to share your opinion or you can e-mail me at serdelyi@cotesaintluc.org
Have a good day!
This is my first blog. I will try to regularly update this page with my thoughts on happenings in the City of Cote Saint-Luc or that affect its residents.
Please use this blog to share your opinion or you can e-mail me at serdelyi@cotesaintluc.org
Have a good day!
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