BEPPLE – Organic waste collection will help climate goals and save money

I CAN STILL REMEMBER the excitement when the first deposits were put on soft drink bottles and beer bottles. The year was 1970, and I would have been seven or eight years old. Way back then, the province of B.C. legislated the first deposit-return system in North America.

Suddenly, my friends and I were scouring ditches for cast-offs, and going door-to-door on impromptu bottle drives. For us, bottles were gold: they were worth one to five cents each. From then on, bottles were no longer garbage.

Fast forward to today, and starting next week, residential organic waste collection will join the long list of items that are no longer “solid waste.”

Instead of kitchen waste becoming garbage, we will put it into our new green bins. It will then be collected by the City of Kamloops to be composted and used as organic material for farms and flower gardens.

From the 1970s until today, more and more things have been taken out of the waste stream.

Paper, tin and hard plastic containers are collected weekly at residences. People take yard waste to depots in Sahali, Cinnamon Ridge and Barnhartvale. Electronics, glass bottles, soft plastic and styrofoam are accepted at depots around the city as well.

We pay an environmental levy for tires, and they are collected at the end of life. Drywall and other building materials are collected at the Owl Road depot.

I found out a couple of years ago, there is even a place to take an old lawnmower. As much as possible, material is diverted from the landfill.

When we roll out our green cart next week, we will be continuing on the process started 50 years ago of diverting materials from the landfill.

Every time an item is diverted from the landfill, the landfill’s life is extended. Approval processes for new landfills are lengthy. Once approved, creating a new landfill is costly.

The most cost effective approach is not to create a new landfill but instead to extend its life. Reducing the amount of solid waste going into the landfill saves money.

The new organic collection process will save the City an equivalent of $1 million in new landfill costs per year. That’s a lot of money just for diverting potato peelings and chicken bones.

Hence, diverting organic waste saves us all money in the long run.

Diverting organic waste also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions of our city. The City’s climate action plan estimates that by the City collecting residential organic material and composting it, there will be an annual reduction of 6,100 tCO₂e (“tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent,” all GHG emissions: carbon dioxide, methane, and refrigerants, etc.).

Collecting organic waste will help the City of Kamloops meet its climate action goals.

We’ve been recycling pop bottles for 50 years. We can’t imagine going back to the time before no bottle returns.

Next week, we’re starting a new process, by rolling out our green bins. It may take a bit of time to get used to, but I think 50 years from now, we won’t be able to imagine throwing away kitchen waste in our garbage.

Nancy Bepple is a Kamloops City councillor with a strong interest in community building projects.