L to R: Jesse Lee, assistant manager of Strathcona waste services, Jon Isfeld, assistant manager of Comox Valley waste services, Leslie Baird, mayor of Village of Cumberland, Vince Van Tongeren, CVRD's engineering analyst, and Paul Ives, mayor of the Town of Comox
The Town of Comox and the Village of Cumberland have been selected to pilot a new organics waste collection program, which starts the week of June 16th, 2013.
The one-year trial program will involve approximately 6,000 households and will provide an opportunity for the Comox Strathcona waste management (CSWM) service to evaluate the effectiveness of the organics collection, the processing system and to strategize ways to refine the curbside organics service. The program will also assess possible costs to determine if there would be any impact on future rates.
The organic waste will be collected on a weekly basis and composted at the Comox Valley waste management centre, using the Gore Cover System, which converts organic material to high quality compost while minimizing odor.
Households in Comox and Cumberland have already received an information brochure and container sticker in the mail. The brochure identifies that a container with a lid must be used and that the collection system is mainly based around the addition of food scraps, such as fruits and vegetables, meat and bones and shellfish remains, to existing yard waste collection programs.
“Throughout the pilot program, we will work closely with the participating municipalities and their residents to demonstrate that compost curbside organics deliver a number of positive environmental outcomes including reducing landfill waste, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and transforming the organics into a useful resource, that is, compost,” said Tom Boatman, CSWM's manager of solid waste.
The compost created from the pilot project will be given back to the participating municipalities to use for public area garden beds and community parks as a soil conditioner, creating a sustainable and completed food-back-to-soil loop.
Details about the organics compost program are available on the participating municipalities' websites, http://www.comox.ca and http://www.cumberland.ca or by visiting the Comox Strathcona waste management service www.cswm.ca/organiccomposting. A limited amount of program brochures and container stickers are also available at the municipal offices.