On Tuesday, the Civic Works Committee voted to move ahead with an environmental action plan that includes curbside organic waste pickup – essentially, paving the way for green bins. It’s wonderful to see the city finally move forward on organic waste diversion after more than a decade of stalling and even moving backwards on the issue.

London is the only major city in Ontario without a green bin program, and as a result we are still mired in the mid-40s for percentage of waste diverted from the garbage dump. We can’t meet the provincial target of 60% waste diversion from landfills without addressing organic trash. There is another reason for urgency.  London’s landfill site, W12A, is only expected to meet the city’s needs for a little more than 10 years. It’s already the size of 190 football fields. Improving waste diversion will help that space last longer and reduce (or potentially avoid) the cost of land expansion.

It’s difficult to understand the delay. The City began requiring big festivals in Victoria Park (such as SunFest and Rib Fest) to also separate organic waste at EcoStations in 2007. It was a great way to make our festivals greener while getting Londoners ready to sort food waste at home. Unfortunately, the City stopped that requirement in 2014 and Home County was the only festival to continue with EcoStations that year. A Green Bin pilot project was also completed in 2012, but hasn’t progressed to citywide policy until now.

I am glad to see the current council moving forward with green bins and I looking forward to supporting them when the next stage of this implementation plan comes before the next council; however, we need to make sure we aren’t continuing to miss opportunities for effectively dealing with waste in London.

So far, the 60% Residential Waste Diversion plan only includes a firm commitment for what it calls a “Curbside Green Bin Program”. For the most part, that means single-family dwellings only. While the plan does call for a pilot for multi-residential homes (mainly apartment buildings), we’ve seen how long it can take for waste diversion pilots in London to result in real action after wallowing in the “pilot” phase.

Pick-up from apartments should be built into the plan from the beginning. It’s simpler that many might think. While many buildings, especially older ones, only have a single-stream garbage chute, residents have adapted to carrying recyclables down to a central location for sorting and pickup. Chutes could be easily converted to organic waste only. If all of the messy, smelly garbage is going in the green bins (including food waste, pet waste, diapers), what’s left is dry, non-messy garbage that could be carried out like the recycling with very little additional effort. Once we have collection of residential organic waste set up, then the city needs to expand the program to cover commercial and institutional disposal.  Our long-term vision as a city must be set to zero waste, with a stated goal: 2050 is certainly achievable in my estimation.

Another necessary part of making organic pickup work is enforcing the required sorting. London must make clear garbage bags mandatory for the remaining dry garbage, so any organic material that doesn’t belong can easily be seen. Cities like Markham and Guelph have had success with this strategy, that makes it clear to residents sorting is not optional. It also lets collectors spot refuse such as hazardous household waste, construction waste, and electronic waste that need to be taking to proper disposal facilities and not disposed of for curbside collection.

Finally, we need a definitive plan for where London’s organic waste will be sorted. Those who live near the private processing facilities in the region have reasonably expressed concerns about odour pollution. We either need a commitment from one of these facilities to make upgrades that reduce contamination and escaping odours before being awarded a contract for London’s organic waste, or we need a plan to build a top-grade municipally owned facility that could also take in waste from other municipalities.

The actions in the 60% Residential Waste Diversion plan are to be phased in between 2019 and 2022. Let’s begin working on these implementation issues now, and ensure that this program can hit the ground running. On council, I assure you I will be taking action that leads the City toward a robust and successful waste plan.

On Tuesday evening, the Special Events Public Consultation Meeting took place at the Civic Garden Complex.  Scott Stafford and Krista Kearns of the Community Services Department did an excellent job of going over the policies and procedures that will change in the 2013 manual for the 2014 season (with Ms. Kearns’s assistant taking minutes).  Unfortunately, the ratio of staff members to audience participants was one to one:  for those who don’t like mathematics, that means three staff at the front of the room and three of us in attendance.

Regardless of the turnout, the meeting proved very informative.  When Ms. Kearns began describing changes to “Section 9: Procedures for the use of Victoria Park”, she started by noting that mechanical rides can no longer sit on the grass (instead they need to situate on the road), and trailers and vehicles must also locate on the road or another paved surface.    This all provides relief for the much-trampled grass in the park.

The bombshell followed:  EcoStations will henceforth only have two streams – garbage and recycling.  Unless the event organizer requests the third stream (composting), the City of London will only provide EcoStations with two types of containers for garbage and recycling, and event organizers no longer need to provide staffing.  The standard garbage cans already situated in the park will have blue bins twinned during the festival, with emptying of both a duty of the City.  Emptying the (two or three) bins at the EcoStations remain the responsibility of the event organizer.

When I asked for the reasoning behind removing the compost stream, Mr. Stafford explained that the original idea of having the EcoStations—with three streams and volunteers—came with anticipation of a green-bin program forthcoming by the City.  Volunteers in the EcoStations instruct festival-goers how to dispose of waste properly into three streams so that residents can repeat the same process at home:  garbage can, blue box, and green bin.  London citizens become more aware of the three-stream process and don’t have to think as much about it when bringing in the green-bin program.  Pure and simple, no?

Now with no green-bin program on the horizon (the pilot project in Pond Mills concluded nearly a year ago and the current council appears to have no plans to implement a city-wide program), the staff conclusion aligns with not implementing green bins rather than continuing to make a progressive step toward waste diversion at these festivals.  The policy will continue to require one EcoStation for every four food vendors.  The City provides everything included in the EcoStations, while the event operator used to staff them (no longer a requirement).

Mr. Stafford also noted too much cross-contamination of materials for reaching the decision, with the efforts and costs going into the three-stream system not giving desired results.  They have decided to not look at re-introducing the third stream for composting until the City implements green bins (i.e. following the City’s garbage-collection policy).

My final question to the staff members asked about where the compost went after collection.  Mr. Stafford didn’t know for certain, but knew that the compostables went to an appropriate collection site (not Jay Stanford’s backyard!), and promised to get the information to me.

I encourage the festival organizers to request the three-stream EcoStations going forward, while also continuing to recruit volunteers to run them.  The learning process must continue, lest the lessons of the past seven festival seasons become for naught.  This important initiative must not die because of inaction at City council to implement green bins.

Other topics included noise levels in Victoria and Harris Parks, which I shall cover in a future post.