Straight Talk

Metro Vancouver is moving ahead with plans to open food-waste composting facilities in the region, with the first to be built this year at the Northwest Langley Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The contract is expected to be granted in May, with construction completed by November, according to a staff report.

“When the final destination of your wastes is the landfill, you try to divert and recycle and compost as much as you can,” Port Moody mayor Joe Trasolini told the Straight.

Trasolini is a member of Metro Vancouver’s waste management committee, which was set to discuss on March 12 the first of a series of staff reports dealing with the development of two regional food-waste composting facilities.

“Organic wastes break down, and they produce greenhouse gasses and methane,” Trasolini said. “All of those end results are problematic. If we can take the organics out, it reduces the volume of waste going to the landfills.”

According to the staff report, the composting facilities will be capable of accepting residential and commercial food wastes to compost with yard wastes.

The Langley site will serve municipalities on Metro Vancouver’s east side, which produce an estimated 120,000 tonnes of food and yard waste per year. The facility will be able to process only 40,000 tonnes, so additional capacity would be needed later on. The report noted that staff from Maple Ridge and Surrey have indicated that their municipalities are interested in hosting composting facilities.

Metro Vancouver staff have yet to determine the location of a second facility to serve the western part of the region, which generates about 160,000 tonnes of food and yard waste. The Vancouver Landfill is staff’s preferred site, but there are currently unresolved issues as to its continued use, the report noted. It added that two private composting operations in Richmond and Delta are interested in hosting a regional facility.