The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) has selected the Valmar area in Grand Forks for a pilot project.
From today (Jan. 18) until July 11, residents in that area will have green bins to put food scraps into and in turn, that compostable material will be collected weekly and brought to the composting site at the Grand Forks landfill.
According to RDKB Solid Waste Program Co-ordinator Tim Dueck, the landfill already has a composting set up for garden and yard waste and it won’t be much trouble to include food scraps.
Last year, the RDKB said that it estimated that 40 per cent of garbage heading to the landfill was organic waste and by excluding that material, it says that will extend the landfill’s life.
If Valmar residents give positive feedback on the project and it accomplishes the goals of diverting household waste, the project could go from a pilot project in Valmar to city-wide compostable material collection and that would be a very good thing.
Global warming and greenhouse gas (GHG) are two terms that have been used ad nauseam over the years but they are relevant, especially when you consider all the incidences of flooding and disasters that have occurred throughout the world over the past year – something some have attributed to global warming.
Another reason reduction of GHG in the area will be beneficial (besides the obvious) is the city was required by the province to achieve carbon neutrality, as much as possible, as of this past Jan. 1, while the province is hoping to reduce GHG emissions by 33 per cent by 2020.
Five per cent of the province’s carbon emissions are said to be coming from GHG emissions from landfills and the RDKB says that the landfill in Grand Forks saw 4,300 tonnes of garbage buried in 2009 and the organic material in that 4,300 tonnes is said to have given off what would be equal to 7,658 tonnes of carbon emissions.
The reasons for reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions are numerous and adding food scraps to the compostable material at the landfill is a good start.
With all that has been made about global warming, it would be good to move this from a pilot project into regular collection as quickly as possible.
– Grand Forks Gazette
