City hopes to divert 30,000 tonnes of organic waste

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Residents in the thousands of apartment buildings and condos across the city will soon have the same right to compost as those who live in single family homes.

Mayor David Miller announced Wednesday the city's green bin program is being expanded to the 4,500 multi-unit residential buildings currently receiving city collection services.

"For the city to reach our ambitious, but attainable, goal of 70 per cent diversion, residents of apartments and condos need to be part of the green bin program," he said.

The announcement was made at The Boulevard condo building on Doris Avenue in the heart of North York, which has been part of a green bin pilot project for more than a year and a half. To date 30 per cent of residents participate in the program and the number of garbage bins at the building has been reduced by more than half. The building's recycling participation rate is 75 per cent.

"A miracle has happened here. We've gone from five bins to two," said Ward 38 (Scarborough Centre) Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker.

The program will be rolled out around the pilot project buildings first in different areas of the city and then in February or March the full rollout will begin in Scarborough and move westward. Over the next 18 months 300 buildings a month will be brought on to the program. The first targets will be the largest buildings, said De Baeremaeker, who is also the public works and infrastructure committee chairperson.

"The exciting world of garbage just got more exciting," he said. "We'll stop at nothing to take your garbage out of the garbage stream and put it in the compost or recycling bin."

Previous plans to expand the program weren't feasible because there wasn't enough processing capacity, but De Baeremaeker said the city recently finalized a contract for 30,000 tonnes of organic waste, which is how much the expanded program will divert annually. Contracts for additional capacity are being finalized and De Baeremaeker said the city would have the capacity if the program is more successful than anticipated. Currently, building diversion rates are just 13 per cent.

"This program alone will double the rate of diversion," Miller said.

Anne-Marie Ambert, president of the board at Boulevard, said when she became president two years ago increasing waste diversion rates was a priority. She asked for volunteers to compost in the garden and quickly found 30. She soon found out about the pilot project and was able to get her building signed up.

The mechanics of how the green bin program will work in each building may differ slightly. At Ambert's building residents have a small kitchen bin in their units and they bring down a bag of compost whenever they wish to a service room that houses a six-foot by three-foot bin for organic waste. The building fills two bins a week and the material is collected on Fridays.

A noticeable smell does emanate from the room when the doors are open; Ambert said there is an occasional odour problem that will only get worse as more residents buy into the program.

"The more successful we are the more it will smell, that's why we'd like to get pickup twice a week," she said, trying to persuade councillors and senior staff gathered for the press conference. She suggested they go to once a week garbage pickup from the two and increase organics to twice a week.

She said there are no issues with pests.

While Ambert has advocated for increased diversion because she believes it's the right thing to do, the efforts have also helped to save between $30,000-$50,000 a year in garbage collection costs (the final numbers have not be tallied).

"When we get better, we'll save a little more," she said.

By expanding the program to multi-unit residential buildings, the city will be able to take 6,000 garbage trucks off the road that normally travel to Michigan.

The green bin program was rolled out to single family homes across the city between 2003 and 2005.