City council has thrown its weight behind a plan that could reduce the capital region’s waste-line by up to 80 per cent in 10 years.
Council voted unanimously to support a move by the Capital Regional Waste Minimization Advisory Committee to seek a $180,000 grant from the province to fund the creation of a regional waste management strategy to keep 80 per cent of the region’s trash out of the landfill within 10 years.
The committee is a 20-some-year-old group that focuses on reducing the amount of waste going to landfills. It includes 15 communities in the capital region, including Edmonton, Sturgeon County and St. Albert.
The capital region has failed to meet the province’s voluntary waste reduction goal for 2010, notes a report to council. The region threw out about 1,146 kilograms of junk per person last year — far above the provincial target of 800. (Alberta used to have a target of 500 kilograms per person, according to Alberta Environment, but raised it to 800 in 2008 to account for rapid growth).
Trash levels in the capital region are rising by about 1.5 per cent a year and are expected to double within a few decades. “The current trend is not sustainable,” the report reads, and the cumulative effects of not addressing it could significantly affect the environment, land values and quality of life for residents.
We need to realize that landfill space is finite, says Anita Fisher, the mayor of Devon (which is applying for the grant on behalf of the group), and that landfills are a significant source of greenhouse gases.
“There are many, many things that as a region we can do to narrow our waste-line,” Fisher says.
The industrial, construction and commercial sectors are the fastest-growing source of trash in the capital region, for example, yet there are no programs in place that target them. “Could we provide them with blue-bag services?”
A regional approach would let communities share resources and ideas, she continues. Many municipalities do not offer organic programs due to the cost, for example, but a regional approach could let them share composting facilities. A regional trash-awareness program could also help cut down on waste.
Eighty per cent is a hard but achievable target, says Christina Seidel, committee member and executive director of the Recycling Council of Alberta. “You can get pretty darn close if you get super, super aggressive.”
That means extensive recycling and composting programs, as well as bag limits and landfill bans. “It will take some pretty effective social marketing to get up over 70 per cent.”
Fisher says she hopes to have the grant in place by November and the plan finished 10 months later.
One of the world’s top experts on renewable power is coming to Edmonton next week to tell Albertans how they can start a green energy revolution.
Christine Wörlen, director of renewable energies for the German Energy Agency, will be speaking at Grant MacEwan University Tuesday as part of a series of talks organized by the Solar Energy Society of Alberta, says Rob Harlan, the group’s executive director.
Wörlen is a renowned authority on renewable power and has advised some 60 nations on its development, Harlan says. She is also part of a group responsible for making sure Germany meets its climate change goals.
Hanlon says “Germany really is the gold standard for how to develop a very effective and quick transition policy to renewables,” having installed 7,500 megawatts of solar power last year — more than double what the U.S. has done in three decades.
This talk will be of interest to anyone who wants to know about solar power’s potential, Harlan says, and starts at 7 p.m. in Room 5–142. Visit solaralberta.ca for details.
