Posted by Magda
Hamilton seems to be going the opposite way from us on the sewage sludge front. While Guelph is putting in place a new plan to let us better spread the stuff on farmers' fields, Hamilton is looking to build an incinerator or two.
Here's a pertinent exerpt from a weekend story in the Spec:
Posted by Magda
You can get rid of your electronic waste, buy a composter and tour the city's recycling plant, all at once, all this weekend (and John Galt weekend and Labour Day weekend).
Read more here.
Posted by Magda
72% of Guelph residents surveyed by city staff support sending our trash to an incinerator out of the city.
15% were opposed.
That's according to responses to almost 800 surveys the city collected at its waste management master plan open houses.
That's according to a telephone survey of 400 random residents conducted by Oraclepoll Research this spring.
Some other results from the surveys:
You can check out the survey results here.
Posted by Magda
When city officials met with the provincial minister of environment last week, they told him that in 2004, the city diverted 54% of its trash from landfill. They said that was the highest diversion rate in the province, and that the data came from Waste Diversion Ontario.
I looked at the Waste Diversion Ontario website. I found such data for 2006, but nothing for 2004. I talked to two people there and corresponded by email with one -- their executive director -- who said they didn't publish that data for 2004. They did publish diversion rates strictly for recyclables -- so not including Guelph's composting program. Guelph's diversion rate of recyclables was 42.81% in 2004.
In my continued quest for the source of the data, I talked to the city's environment director, who gave the presentation. She told me to talk to the waste manager. He sent me back to the environment director.
He also told me to look in the city budget. There I found the city's diversion rate for 2004 was 53%.
I'm looking for the source of the data because I'm curious which municipalities had diversion rates similar to Guelph's. I'll keep digging and post here if I figure it out.
Posted by Magda
The All-Treat Farms composter in Arthur smells. The Ministry of the Environment, All-Treat and neighbours agree on that.
But no charges have been laid. Instead, the province is working with All-Treat to ensure they do stuff like keep more of their compost covered.
MOE official Marcel Parent couldn't specifically say why Guelph was charged for being smelly and All-Treat hasn't been.
All he could say is "All-Treat has complied with all our requests."
The company created an odour abatement plan, which they've been following. They're also communicating with residents through public meetings and a website, which includes a list of what they're doing to control odours. Check that out here.
Read more in the Merc... er... sometime this week, probably.
Posted by Magda
In 2006, Guelph diverted 39.2% of our trash from landfill, according to a report by Waste Diversion Ontario. Waste Diversion Ontario has long been asking municipalities for their diversion rates, but 06 was the first year they audited the numbers and presented them as compared to other municipalities. According to them, we were 53rd in the province that year, between Peel and Napanee. West Perth had the highest diversion rate, at 54%.
According to the numbers, the average Guelph resident generated 400 kg of garbage in 2006, of which 157 kg was diverted from landfill.
Posted by Magda
When my colleague Lisa Varano wrote about an Earth Day cleanup a couple of weeks ago, the numbers didn't really jump out at me.
But when organizer Andrew Lambden stood up at council tonight and said they'd collected almost 12,000 kg of trash that day, I was shocked.
I remember -- vaguely -- a time when littering didn't seem like such a big deal. Today, though, I'm sure I'd get stared down if someone saw me tossing a bottle or wrapper on the sidewalk. So where does all that trash come from?
Posted by Magda
5,542: tonnes of yard waste the city received last year
10,821: tonnes of recyclables received from within Guelph
19,837: tonnes of recyclables received from other municipalities
63,104: tonnes of non-recyclables the city received
At the city's recycling plant, 61 per cent of what was received was recycled.
This information comes from the city's annual reports. There's no number in there for the city's overall rate of diverting trash from landfill. But by my calculation, the city dealt with 99,294 tonnes of waste and recyclables last year. Of that, they sold 26,199 tonnes for recycling. That gives a diversion rate of 26.4%.
In 2003, the city's diversion rate was 58%; in 04 it was 53%; in 05 it was 55%. Across the province, it was 27% in 2003.
Posted by Magda
It's nice to see the city release annual reports for its waste operations. Last year those reports weren't released until requested through a Freedom of Information request, and initially had pages missing as well. I'm glad to see more openness this year.
Looks like I've got a bit of reading to do...
Posted by Magda
Council changed the name of the Organics Steering Committee to Organics Committee Monday.
That reflects legal advice that implies the process the city was following is faulty.
Denis Chamberland, acting as outside counsel for the city, wrote a letter to city staff saying the process of choosing a technology needs to change. It needs to be confidential, and the public can't influence the opinions of the team evaluating future wet-plant technologies.
So, the public committee -- which was made up of a councillor, a rep from U of G, a Puslinch councillor, a Guelph councillor and others -- will play a "quality assurance" role. The committee will provide feedback to and ask questions of the evaluation team to make sure they've considered the criteria in the request for proposals for technology.
The report also says construction should start late this year or early next.
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