Calgary recycles

[Doug]

I've got a question. Does the compost generated from organics recycling (yard waste etc.) actually get used for anything? I'm questioning whether a city wide composting project would actually make sense if a large portion of the compost would simply continue to pile up much like it would in a landfill. I have a hard time believing that large numbers of people drive out to the composte pile, load up and spread it on their gardens. I have an even harder time believing that the City could use it all in it's parks.

[Slug]

The city of Airdrie uses its compost pile in its gardens but I believe most of it is sold to local farm interests.

[Doug]

[QUOTE=You Need A Thneed;4163825]Regarding curbside recycling programs in the past:

We discussed it briefly in one of my college classes (I can't remember why it came up, as the class had nothing to do with the topic), but some of the early programs were HUGE money-losing endevors - not that recycling necessarily need to be a money making venture - but they were also quite limited in effectiveness as there was no market for the collected goods.

After hearing the stats I heard (I can't remember what they were any more), I was glad that Calgary did not have a curbside pickup system at the time, as programs back in the (early?) 90s were generally not much more than green-washing wastefulness.
QUOTE]


When I lived in Edmonton in the early 90's, this was the situation. The City stockpiled much of the recycleables it collected. Around 1992, a big pile of it went up in flames, burning something like 2 years worth of what had been collected. Sometimes being a follower is better than being a leader.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by lubicon

I'm just not a fan in general. It could lead to either people leaving their extra bags on their neighbor's driveway, or dumping it into the nearest dumpster at the local store. Tags would just lead people to either sell theirs to neighbors or give them away. I don't see how the net result would result in any less garbage going into the landfills so al you end up with is more bureaucracy (sp?) and higherst cost for no gain.

Or people would just shift from regular sized garbage bags to oversized ones like I use from Costco.

That is exactly what happened when I lived in Redmond, Wa which had a 2 bag per week limit. It was surprising how many people brought their trash to work to get rid of it there.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Slug

The city of Airdrie uses its compost pile in its gardens but I believe most of it is sold to local farm interests.

I still can't belive that farm demand would be sufficient to get rid of it all.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by lubicon

The only grass that goes in teh garbage at my place is from when I power rake in the spring. After that it goes into the composter.

I could never get composting to work all that well in Calgary with the cool temps and dry air. Unless I added water to the composter almost daily in the summer, it just accumulated. In the winter, next to nothing decomposed.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Doug

I've got a question. Does the compost generated from organics recycling (yard waste etc.) actually get used for anything? I'm questioning whether a city wide composting project would actually make sense if a large portion of the compost would simply continue to pile up much like it would in a landfill. I have a hard time believing that large numbers of people drive out to the composte pile, load up and spread it on their gardens. I have an even harder time believing that the City could use it all in it's parks.

Good question, and the answer may lie about 280km north of here in Edmonton. They recycle and compost their organics with great success, so I hear. I'm too lazy to look, but I would imaging they are using and selling pretty much everything they produce as compost.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ It does get used, the biggest issue for Calgary is still cost. It is much cheaper to put it in the landfill at this point in time. (it is projected to cost $12 a month per house to provide green bin service, $144 a year)

Toronto covers the costs of its program in a neat way, they do not charge for recycling or 'green bin' as organic service is known. You pay based on how much garbage you produce. Additional bag tags are $3.10. The fees noted below are additional charges on top of what they paid before for basic garbage and recycling, much like the situation Calgarian's are in today. For garbage however, you have service every two weeks, and the smallest bin holds very little.

(source Toronto Star)link

Recycling is also only every two weeks, but you get the biggest bin for no extra cost if you want it.

[DizzyEdge]

Anyone in the NW get their bins yet? I see the city website indicates you are to get your bin 2-6 wks before service starts, and NW service is listed as starting in about 2 1/2 wks.

[Stang]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Anyone in the NW get their bins yet? I see the city website indicates you are to get your bin 2-6 wks before service starts, and NW service is listed as starting in about 2 1/2 wks.

Mine arrived a few (3 or 4?) weeks ago in Tuscany, and my folks in Beddington also have theirs (not sure when it arrived, but at least two weeks ago).

[freeweed]

Royal Oak got ours weeks ago, even though service doesn't start until June 9th or so. Mine's already overflowing, and I've thrown out literally a single black bag since then. It was a full black bag, but still...

I'm not looking forward to the upcoming hot weather, as I don't think I rinsed everything near well enough. Back when it was +5 I didn't think about it too much.

[lubicon]

We got ours about 2-3 weeks ago (Tuscany). Pickup starts the week of June 9. It's about 2/3 full right now but we aren't putting in paper (yet) in order to keep it from filling up before they start picking up. We'll continue to take paper/cardboard to the community recycling until they do.

The biggest difference I have noticed is how much plastic & food packaging is going into the bin. We had to throw it out before since there were no other options. The amount of 'garbage' we generate is a lot less now and that's a good thing.

My only complaint is the cost of the program. I don't have a huge problem with the $8/month for the actual recycling, my biggest beef is the City has added an extra $4/month onto our garbage collection and we will now be generating much less garbage than before.

[Doug]

Cities like Toronto are in a completely different position than Calgary. Toronto has to transport its garbage hundreds of km away at great expense, so diverting compostables is a huge cost savings. Calgary's landfills are close to the city and literally hundreds of years away from hitting capacity. The only benefit of a city wide composting program would be from the compost being used from something locally.

I hear lots about the success of the composting program in Edmonton, but have never heard anything about what happens to the compost. If it is simply being trucked 280km to be added to a pile, the program would actually be a negative due to the amount of energy required by transportation.

[Bigtime]

I thought the city was going to coordinate the composting with the community gardens around town to make it available to them?

My wife and I have a plot at the Inglewood community garden this season and that is what we were told. They think the city is still trying to work out the details of where these compost pickup spots would be.

[Me&You]

Just a reminder, as of Monday June 1st, recycling levies on plastic milk containers jump to $.10 for <1L and $.25 for >1L.

Can't see many people/families tossing $.25 into the blue bin several times a week...

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Me&You

Just a reminder, as of Monday June 1st, recycling levies on plastic milk containers jump to $.10 for <1L and $.25 for >1L.

Can't see many people/families tossing $.25 into the blue bin several times a week...

Milk containers also become returnable to bottle depots for a refund on the deposit. You'd be a fool to put them in the blue bins.

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by lubicon

Milk containers also become returnable to bottle depots for a refund on the deposit. You'd be a fool to put them in the blue bins.

And according to the news yesterday, milk jugs sold on June 1 or after will be marked with "deposit elligible" or something like that, so that you can't return all of the milk jugs you've been hoarding waiting in anticipation to get money from nothing.

And we all know that we've all been hoarding milk jugs for that reason.

[lubicon]

Correct. The new milk jugs (which are selling now) have red lettering on them indicating that a deposit has been paid, or something to that effect. My wife showed me one last night.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Me&You

Just a reminder, as of Monday June 1st, recycling levies on plastic milk containers jump to $.10 for <1L and $.25 for >1L.

Can't see many people/families tossing $.25 into the blue bin several times a week...

Time vs money. My friends think I'm insane that I don't store up all sorts of crap in my garage, and take a run down to the ever-nice smelling bottle depots, all for a few dollars. I'll gladly "throw out" a few bucks a month just to avoid that hassle. And yes, it works out to much less than $10/month in my household - we're not chronic pop or beer drinkers.

Quite frankly adding a bottle levy now that we have curbside recycling (that we pay for!) is completely disgusting. The levies worked wonderfully when there was no other option other than throwing them out, but really, there's no excuse not to recycle now, so what the hell is the point of a levy?

I suspect a lot of people will be like me, and just toss it in the blue bin anyway. And the city (or whoever is charging this levy) will reap the profits. For absolutely no reason at all.

[mersar]

The deposits for the milk containers are provincially managed, same as the current system for pop/juice/beer. Though the city will probably reap the profits anyways, from what I'd heard they've been separately sorting all the containers that currently have a deposit on them and those are processed separately and sent back to the ABCRC.