Vancouver’s Food Scraps Ban: Is Your Condo Building Ready?

Date
12.01.2015
Vancouver’s Food Scraps Ban: Is Your Condo Building Ready? hero image
As of January 1, all organic materials are banned from regular trash, under pain of a hefty fine – including for condo buildings

Vancouver’s war on waste is ramping up. On January 1, 2015, the City said “no” to food scraps in the garbage by banning all organic material in the regular trash. Now, items such as veggie peelings, bones, fat and even pizza boxes must be placed in special bins for commercial composting.

From hard-core environmentalists to eco-savvy millennials, the general consensus is that this is a long overdue move in the right direction toward green. But for many condo dwellers, the logistics can appear daunting – even with a six-month grace period before violators will be slapped with a fine.

The Big Picture

The City of Vancouver has already been implementing its food scraps system in about 1,800 condo buildings – around a third of the condo buildings in the City’s jurisdiction. Those buildings should already have new food scrap bins and be participating fully in separating food from garbage. However, like everywhere else, there is a six-month grace period before spot checks and fines come into play on July 1.

Strata councils in the remaining 3,900 or so condo buildings not serviced by the City’s program are obliged to renegotiate their contracts with their current recycling providers to include a food scraps program. This must be done by July 1 when the grace period ends – after which all condo buildings are subject to spot checks by City officials.

Stratas will be slapped with a fine (depending on the size of building) if the composition of their landfill garbage is deemed to comprise more than 25 per cent food scraps. So it’s the garbage bin that will be inspected – not the food scraps bin.

The Practical Issues

The next issue is, where to put the bins? Most residential towers were designed with dedicated garbage/recycling rooms, so adding another bin is hardly an onerous task. Concert Properties has been doing it in their rental properties for years – long before it was officially mandated.

Smaller condos, however, are often tight on storage space. Some buildings could fence off one or more existing parking spots for additional bins. But in many neighbourhoods like Kitsilano or Fairview, low-rise apartment blocks are already forced to store recycling bins in back alley alcoves and simply have no expansion space.

For these condo dwellers, Nichole Stefenelli, founder of Urban Impact Recycling, says smaller containers with more frequent pick-ups may be the only route to go. Her company will sometimes even negotiate a floor-by-floor service to eliminate the need for daily trips to the recycle room.

“It’s definitely important to make it easy for people,” says Jonathan Meads, Concert’s development and sustainability manager. He explains how Concert’s “recycling lounges” are well lit, constantly washed and have walls painted to correspond with the colour of each type of recycling bins – blue for paper, red for soft plastics and brown for organics.

The company has also committed to providing every purchaser in upcoming condominium projects with a sleek-looking, compact organic waste bucket for their kitchen. “Plus we’ve translated recycling directions into seven languages that can be used as a hand-out, and we’ll soon include in our Home Owner’s Manual,” Mead says.

The Small Things

While some developers declined to comment, most believe that on the inside it will take little more than minor, often commonsense modifications to streamline recycling. “We’re working with our cabinet manufacturers to incorporate under-the-sink recycling centres – a feature already found in many single-family homes – into our new floorplans,” explains Manuela Mirecki, Ledingham McAllister’s senior vice president of marketing and design.

Greg Zayadi, vice president of sales and marketing at Anthem Properties, says his company has increased space for kitchen recycling and presorting simply by eliminating the garburator – and buyers hardly noticed the change. “At our Union project in Victoria, only three people out of 130 purchasers asked why there was no garburator. It’s a minor change, but it has a potentially large impact on reducing the amount of organics that find their way into our water system.”

Defeating the Yuck Factor

Arguably, though, one of the greatest challenges in gaining consumer acceptance will be taming the “yuck factor” – the perception of bad odors and increased interest from fruit flies and vermin. The good news: most industry watchers believe clean, dry and sealed containers resolve these legitimate concerns.

“Clean, well-sealed containers that can be washed easily and frequently are key — both in the kitchen and in the outdoor bins,” Stefenelli stresses, adding that Urban Impact washes every bin on location, every time it’s emptied. In her own home, she uses an “attractive,” well-sealed container to store her organics before taking them to the recycle bin — a task she does once a day. Any lingering odors after cleaning her kitchen container are easily removed by simply swishing it with half a cup of vinegar.

Another creative solution comes from one first time homeowner who confesses she rarely eats at home. “I keep a five-liter ice cream pail in my freezer. Sometimes it takes me over a week to fill it with scrapes and waste, but there’s never a smell,” she says.

However, buildings serviced by the City should be warned that collectors will not be cleaning out the communal bins on emptying them, which could prove an unpleasant and challenging weekly chore for strata members.

Worm Watch

For now, the jury’s out on what role worm composting will have in the new world of condo organics. Vish Hour, owner of WormWorx Organics Recycling, believes composting can be a valuable part of the equation but is unlikely to be widely used – at least for now. “It’s time consuming, containers are expensive, you can only use certain types of organic waste, and other than donate it to a community garden or your friends, what do you do with the rich, nutrient-packed soil you’ve produced?”

But, like taking transit or cycling, he also believes it’s a movement that will grow. “If only 20 per cent of all Vancouver households participated, it would divert thousands of metric tons. It will never be all the solution, but it can play a part.”

Complete information about the City of Vancouver’s organic recycling program can be found at www.vancouver.ca/organicsban.

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