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Digging into the cost of waste disposal

Separating household organic waste from regular trash is supposed to save the city money. The city’s contract for waste disposal at the 170th Street landfill ends this year, which has prompted the city to adopt a curbside organics program.

Separating household organic waste from regular trash is supposed to save the city money.

The city’s contract for waste disposal at the 170th Street landfill ends this year, which has prompted the city to adopt a curbside organics program.

The rationale is explained in a Q&A section of the city’s website: “… the city will face longer transportation times to deposit refuse at the landfill; this will affect the costs associated with solid waste collection. As a result, the city is taking steps to encourage waste reduction through curbside organics and yard waste collection and avoid higher future costs for residents.”

The city recently announced it had awarded the contract for organic waste processing to the Roseridge facility east of Morinville. This is also where St. Albert’s garbage will end up, so how can the city save money if both waste streams are being trucked to the same facility using two separate truck fleets?

For answers, one has to dig deeper, said Christian Benson, St. Albert’s solid waste program co-ordinator.

Half the city’s waste collection is currently contracted out. The city decided to take over all its garbage collection with city equipment and staff but will contract out organics pickup.

The new program will see the city collect garbage every two weeks rather than the current weekly pickup. This means it can do the entire city with the same number of trucks and people as it currently employs to do half, Benson said.

“There’s an operational cost just off the top. We’d have to double our trucks or double our staff,” he said.

The city is buying a fleet of five automated trucks that will handle the garbage and will contract out the pickup and delivery of the organic waste. The program will see all households receive two plastic ‘toters,’ one for regular household garbage and another for organic waste.

Cost isn’t the only reason for adopting curbside organics, which also factored in environmental concerns, said public works director Glenn Tompolski.

“In the long term, we fully anticipate to save some dollars for sure,” he said.

The city hasn’t officially signed its organics contract with Roseridge so Tompolski is tight-lipped with numbers but he said the costs of dumping garbage versus processing compost are “comparable.”

“There’s every indication that landfill costs aren’t going to go down,” he said. “The processing costs we don’t anticipate will increase as much as the landfill costs.”

Strathcona County implemented a curbside organics program in 2008 for many of the same reasons as St. Albert. The county was facing the closure of Edmonton’s Gold Bar landfill and with it longer trucking distances, so the decision was made to reduce the amount of garbage.

“Landfill costs are increasing across the province, making organics processing much more economical. We are experiencing this with our program,” said waste management co-ordinator Leah Seabrook.

The county is now diverting 65 per cent of its waste whereas St. Albert is currently diverting 42 per cent.

The City of St. Albert did a very thorough analysis last year when it was figuring out what to do with waste collection, said Mayor Nolan Crouse.

“I went through about as much as I could go through as mayor and our staff did more,” he said.

“I feel good where we’re at. I don’t see anything else that’s left to do on this other than implement it.”

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