It’s Waste Reduction Week!

The week of October 16 to 22, 2006 has been designated as Waste Reduction Week in Canada, and the theme is “Too Good to Waste.”  So, what is Waste Reduction Week?  For people all across Canada, it’s a good time to think about how to throw out less garbage.  For waste management professionals, this is a week when they take stock.   They review what they have been doing for the past year, decide what has worked well, and what has not, and make plans for programs for the upcoming year, in an effort to help people send less waste to Canadian landfills.

In British Columbia, it is the Regional Districts who are charged with developing the Solid Waste Management plans for their areas.  These plans not only describe how local government will manage the waste produced in the area, but also describe how they will provide opportunities to residents to ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ so that less waste is produced in the first place. 

The Regional District Okanagan Similkameen (RDOS) and many of its member municipalities are developing new programs to divert resources from the waste stream, and working hard to help people reduce the amount of garbage they send to the landfill through public education and awareness.

What has been done this year in the RDOS to achieve the goals set in the Solid Waste Management Plan?  “2006 will go down as the year of plastics diversion,” says Beth Cavers, Solid Waste Management Coordinator for the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen.  This was the first year that plastics other than milk jugs were successfully diverted from RDOS landfills through various programs.

In January, the blue bag program in most southern areas of the Regional District, the Village of Keremeos, and the Town of Oliver was expanded to include all clean plastics except Styrofoam.  There was overwhelming support from the public for this improvement, and at the beginning of July plastics recycling was subsequently introduced to the Electoral Areas adjacent to Penticton, as well as the City of Penticton.

Prior to their acceptance in local blue bag and blue box programs, plastics took up about 35% of the waste remaining at the curb after the recycling truck had been by.  Including plastics in the recycling program has made a significant reduction in the amount of garbage going to the landfill, and that reduction will continue to grow as people come to realize the full extent of what is currently recyclable. 

Cavers says that there are recyclable plastics in every room of the house.  “In the kitchen you can recycle plastic bags, plastic condiment bottles, the plastic wrapping from case lot goods, margarine and sour cream containers, milk jugs, plastic ‘clamshell’ containers from bakery goods or berries, and a whole host of other plastics.  In the bathroom don’t forget to recycle liquid soap, hair gel and shampoo bottles.  In the laundry room, recyclable plastics include bottles from liquid laundry detergents and other laundry additives as well as drycleaner bags.  In the garage, some recyclable plastics include clean plant pots and flats, and rinsed windshield washer bottles.  You can even recycle that bomb-proof packaging from small electronic gadgets that seems to require an entire set of power tools to open!”

There are only a few nonrecyclable plastic items.  Styrofoam is the only plastic that can not be accommodated by our British Columbia plastic recyclers.  Unfortunately, until this changes, Styrofoam must be thrown out with the regular garbage.  Items under 4 inches such as small lids and plant tags can not be placed in curbside containers because they are not easily seen or picked off sorting conveyors by workers wearing protective gloves.  Items too big to place in recycling bags are also too big to handle at various stages of the recycling process.  Plastic containers that at one time contained hazardous substances such as flammable liquids or pesticides could harm workers at each stage of the recycling process, and are not accepted in curbside recycling.  Finally, some items such as the pump apparatus from liquid soap containers, and many toys, are composed of more than one type of plastic, and the plastic types can not be easily separated.  Thus, recyclers require that plastic items be composed of one type of plastic only.  All in all, there is not much in the way of household plastic that can’t be recycled

Another significant source of plastic waste at RDOS landfills is the agriculture industry.  This realization led to a joint project currently being carried out by the Solid Waste and Air Quality departments at the Regional District which has the express purpose of diverting this material elsewhere.  There are many types of agricultural plastics which are discarded at the end of the season.  Some examples include greenhouse covering, irrigation tubing, baling twine, wine bladders, and plastic ground cover used between rows of field crops.  The RDOS has introduced a program where plastics from agricultural sources are accepted at landfills from farms within their designated service areas free of charge.  This plastic is being stockpiled with the intention of shipping it to a plastics recycling plant and where it will be converted to new usable plastic products instead of filling up the landfills.  One preliminary estimate suggests that this will divert at least 70 metric Tonnes of agricultural plastic from burial at the Oliver Sanitary Landfill alone.

If 2006 is the year of plastics diversion, what plans does the Regional District have for 2007?  “The focus will be on yard waste for next year,” says Cavers.  “We have a bylaw that allows us to ban yard waste from curbside garbage and we will begin to enforce it in March.”  In support of that, the Regional District is ensuring that all areas serviced with curbside collection in the RDOS will receive six yearly pickups in 2007, and that those collection events are evenly spaced throughout the gardening season to best serve residents.  The City of Penticton, Town of Oliver and Village of Keremeos are all considering adopting the same improved schedule of yard waste collections, which would harmonize programs throughout most of the areas serviced within the Regional District, from Hedley to Naramata.

For those people who find that six curbside yard waste collections are still not enough, source-separated yard waste continues to be free to drop off at RDOS-administered landfills for amounts of a half Tonne or less.  That’s a lot of leaves.  “Grass clippings are one of the worst offenders for the production of greenhouse gases at landfills,” says Cavers.  “That’s one of the main reasons we’re implementing this ban.”  Grass clippings can be mowed back into the grass in a process called ‘grasscycling’ that produces a healthier lawn without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  People are always welcome to call Cavers at the RDOS office in Penticton with questions about managing their yard waste.

Also for 2007 are planned improvements to the Campbell Mountain Sanitary Landfill at the Northeast end of Penticton, with the provision of City water to the site, and implementation of other site improvements that will lead to the ability to operate an expanded composting operation.   “The composting operations at the CMSL will eventually accommodate more yard waste, and in turn produce more high quality compost in response to the public demand,” says Cavers.

Finally, agricultural organics, including stumps, prunings, and fruit culls will continue to be accepted free of charge at landfills.  With all this in store, 2007 will certainly see RDOS residents burying less yard waste with their garbage.

In closing, Cavers provided some “Waste Reduction Factoids” to get people thinking about how to generate less waste:

• Canadians take home over 55 million plastic shopping bags every week!
• Recycling plastics and aluminum uses only 5% to 10% as much energy as making new plastic or smelting aluminum.
• Recycling 5 beverage bottles with the “Number 1” designation yields enough fiber for an XL T-shirt.
• Two thirds of our household waste can be composted.

For more information on Waste Reduction Week, see the official website at www.wrwcanada.com.  That is where Canadians can look for ideas for Waste Reduction Week activities, to register their group for Waste Reduction Week, and for contacts and links.  The Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen can be reached at their website at www.rdos.bc.ca.  If you prefer to phone them, they can be contacted at (250) 492-0237, or toll free at 1-877-610-3737.

Let’s make it a great Waste Reduction Week, this week and every week

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