ECOShift

Waterloo Region Council is in support of the green bin expansion program.

As is the case in some other regions in Ontario, Waterloo Region is also in support of a full green bin expansion program.  In December of 2008 council approved the roll out of the already successful Green Bin organics program.

Already today 50,000 homes in Waterloo region are a part of the Green bin program.  These homes generate about  6000 tonnes (that's 6,000,000 kg or 13,227,736 lbs) of organics and as much as 40,000 tonnes could be collected each year if the roll out strategy continues as planned until 2013.  Just to give you an idea of how much this weighs an average school bus weighs about 22,000 lbs.  So the organic waste collected each year already today (50,000 homes) is equivelant in weight to 273 school buses.  Just imagine how much organic waste will be able to be redirected toward more enironmentally friendly processing and end uses.

What is a Green Bin?

About 40% of household waste is organic.  This includes items like food scraps, facial tissues, paper towels, soiled paper packaging and pet waste.  Separating the organic waste from inorganic wastes allows for more efficient and environmentally friendly waste processing.  The green bin is like the blue box except it is for collecting organic waste for separate pickup from your regular garbage and blue box recycling program.

What's the Role Out Plan?

According to the most recent edition of Waterloo Region's Environews newsletter the Green Bin program timeline looks like this:

 October 2006 - Test pilots in 5 city neighbourhoods were launched.  This represented a test study including 5,000 homes.

October 2007 - 5,000 more pilot homes were added bringing the pilot study to 10,000 homes total.

Otober 2008 - A large expansion was added to the program to include an additional 40,000 homes.  This brings the total of participating homes to 50,000.

October 2009 - An additional 40,000 more homes be added to the already 50,000 homes that are part of the green bin program within the region.  This will bring the total participation to 90,000 homes.

October 2010 - At this time it is proposed that all remaining single family homes in the region will have access to the green bin program.   This would represent about 50,000 more homes at this time bringing the grand total to about 140,000 homes.  In addition to the single family pilots would be added to address apartment units and commercial and industrial properties.

2011/2012 - At this time it is proposed that an additional 40,000 apartment units and 100 commercial/industrial properties would be added to the program.

2012/2013 - At this time it is possible that there would be a ban on organic waste from landfill by late 2012 which would require the whole region to be part of the green bin program.

Summary

This is a great initiative and with the help of all the residents in Waterloo Region it is sure to be a success.  I for one, am really looking forward to the green bin program.  We have friends and family in other areas of Ontario (Hamilton / Ancaster etc.) who have been on the green bin program for a number of years now and really see the benefit.  It's not a lot of work and certainly reduces landfill waste.