Re: Saanich to send organic waste to Cobble Hill (News, Nov. 22)
Saanich has awarded a five-year contract to a Cobble Hill company to process organic waste. Coun. Paul Gerrard is quoted stating, “We’ve got to do something and nobody wants this buried in landfill.”
I don’t recall being asked whether residents supported this venture. I, for one, don’t understand the need to process organic material into compost.
We have a perfectly acceptable means of collecting segregated yard waste at the bin facility near Quadra Street and McKenzie Avenue.
This can be processed locally into mulch and used locally. The addition of food scraps appears to be the problem that council is trying to solve. In my view they are being myopic and fail to address the real issue – landfill space.
It is time for council to come into the 21st century. We bury vast volumes of combustible materials that could be safely and environmentally incinerated.
We spend millions to segregate table scraps that could easily be incinerated along with all other non-recyclable materials and produce a value-added product, namely electricity.
The sale of this energy could dramatically offset collection and processing costs. This would be a far better solution to deal with our dwindling landfill space.
I would venture to say that there would be significant private capital ready to proceed with such a venture.
It is time for council to admit they have made an error – creating value-added garbage
Steve Pomper
Saanich
