A 'green bin' program: weekly or biweekly pickup of compostable organic material on trash day

Idea:

Municipal collection of items such as delicious food waste, paper, and plant material can divert waste from landfill, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and provide a source of nutritive compost for local farms and gardens.

Staff Feedback:

Thank you for your feedback and for your care for the environment! Currently, all residential solid waste in Fredericton is managed by the Fredericton Region Solid Waste, part of Regional Service Commission 11. All communities in RSC 11 use this facility, including the City of Fredericton. In 2017, the City of Fredericton engaged consulting firm GHD to conduct a review of our garbage and recycling program. As part of the report, they conducted a comparative analysis of typical curbside composting programs in Canada and the landfill gas utilization plant currently in place at Fredericton Region Solid Waste. They found that the two processes were environmentally equivalent in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The gas plant captures methane from organic waste in the landfill and the energy is converted for use – powering the equivalent of 2,000 homes annually.

GHD did investigate the costs of the City constructing and operating a compost facility and found capital costs would be in the range of $6-15 million with net annual processing and program costs ranging from $575,000 - $1.7 million. This would produce low grade 'compost' usable for fill. Other than the high cost, GHD identified additional barriers to implementing such a program because solid waste is managed at a regional level in New Brunswick and FRSW’s facility and landfill gas plant still have the capacity to operate for a number of years. It also means a composting program would require a new fleet of trucks on the road that emit GHGs. Despite this, the City is considering conducting a more in-depth analysis in the future on the GHG emissions associated with building and running a composting facility to understand if there is a less carbon-intensive way to deal with our waste.