Edmonton needs more composting space to keep up with green cart expansion, city officials say

August 27, 2024 Canuck

Edmonton needs more space to process organic waste as its facilities won’t be able to handle the increase in food scraps collected from households in the city’s expanded strategy.

The city plans to build a new compost facility at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre on Aurum Road in northeast Edmonton but that would take at least a few years, according to a new city report.

“Building a new composting site at the EWMC is the most viable path to an environmentally friendly, cost-effective organics processing program,” the report says.

It could be 2028 before the facility is designed, built and up and running, leaving thousands of tonnes of food scraps in limbo.

“This timeline would lead to a gap where organic waste collected would not be processed due to a lack of processing capacity,” the report says.

In the meantime, it plans to hire a third party to deal with the extra organic waste coming in from more apartment and condo complexes.

City councillors are scheduled to discuss the options contained in the report at a utility committee meeting Sept. 3.

Administration also outlines other options, including contracting all services out to third parties in the future.

Green expansion

The city’s been collecting food scraps waste from single-family residences — about 250,000 homes — since 2021.

It also started collecting food scraps from apartments and condo buildings in 2023 under what it calls the three-stream collection — regular garbage, green and recyclable materials like cardboard and plastics.

Denis Jubinville, branch manager of waste services, says about 20 per cent of apartment and condo residences — 33,000 out of 170,000 units — are participating in the three-stream waste collection so far.

Last year, about 97,300 tonnes of organics were processed from all sources: curbside pick-up from single-family homes, organic waste from apartments and condos and yard waste.

A person steps outside their apartment door. A small green pail is visible on the mat outside. — The city’s food scrap collection program added condos, apartment buildings, row houses and other multi-unit buildings last year. (City of Edmonton)

Approximately 62,000 tonnes of organic waste was processed in 2021, Jubinville said.

As more people move to Edmonton and the program expands to more neighbourhoods, the city expects 121,000 tonnes of organic waste will be collected by 2027.

Some of the processing is done at the High Solids Anaerobic Digestion Facility at the waste management centre, but it can’t keep up with the incoming volume.

“Currently, the city does not have the capacity to process this volume of organic waste within our current facilities,” Jubinville said in an email to CBC News Monday.

Single-source contract

City operations are recommending a single-source agreement with Claystone Waste Ltd. to process organic waste collected from apartments and condos.

The contents of the proposed contract will remain in private under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the report says, and no more details were given as to the reason.

Organic waste collected from apartment and condo buildings is so far, more contaminated — it includes wrappers and material that isn’t organic — than the green bin waste collected from single-family home curbside pick-up.

“The costs associated with this contract will be significantly less than the costs associated with continuing to operate the HSADF (High Solids Anaerobic Digestion Facility) in its current fashion,” Jubinville said.

Claystone runs the landfill at Ryley, east of Edmonton, where most of the garbage, including non-recyclable and non-compostable waste is taken.

Compost complications

The last city compost facility shut down more than five years ago, after engineers found deficiencies with the roof.

That came on the heels of an audit that showed Edmonton’s way of processing garbage was out of date, and no longer efficient.

The Edmonton compost facility was the primary processing area for organic waste in the city, with a yearly capacity of 130,000 tonnes.

The city began building the anaerobic digestion facility to process organics. Administration then realized it was more cost-efficient to hire third parties to process some of the organics and started to contract out the service.

Current contracts that deal with organics from single-family homes are set to expire before the new composter is complete, Jubinville noted, so the city plans to tender new, interim contracts to replace those.

The interim third-party processing contracts are also anticipated to spur private investment in organics processing in the Edmonton region, the city says.

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Canada News

Edmonton needs more composting space to keep up with green cart expansion, city officials say

Green expansion

Single-source contract

Compost complications

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