ICI Organics
ATTN: Owners, Operators, and Managers of Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Services in the RDCK
The Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) has committed to diverting organic waste from regional landfills.
The RDCK Resource Recovery Department is inviting input from the ICI sector on the newly launched Organic Waste Diversion Program to better understand the types and quantities of food wastes generated, and existing systems of organic waste disposal.
To complete the Survey for ICI Stakeholders, please click here, or go to engage.rdck.ca. Registration to the engagement website is required for this survey.
Why Divert Organics?
In our landfills, organic waste creates significant problems:
- It takes up finite landfill space, impacting capacity and lifespan of these costly sites.
- It pollutes the environment through contributing to the generation of leachate (run-off from landfills).
- When it rots in an oxygen-poor environment such as a landfill, large amounts of methane are generated. Landfill-generated methane accounts for up to 23% of national methane emissions (source). As a greenhouse gas, methane has a global warming potential more than 80 times greater than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year period (source).
Diverting this material to composting facilities greatly reduces the negative impacts of landfilled organic wastes. Additionally, composting is a great way for us to turn waste products into a resource that is valuable to local communities for the production of healthy soils and food.
Meeting Organic Waste Diversion Goals
Programs and services are being established to allow for widespread adoption of organic waste separation and recycling throughout the RDCK. These include residential curbside collection services, as well as encouragement of the private and public sector to begin making plans to participate in this system, where organics diversion is not currently happening. The organic waste generated in the Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional (ICI) sector represents a significant source of landfilled materials that can and should be properly recycled.
New Programs and Facilities
The RDCK now has two composting facilities at or near completion; one at the Creston Landfill and one near Salmo at the former Central Landfill. These facilities will allow the RDCK to process up to 9,500 tonnes of organic waste annually. The Ootischenia and Grohman Narrows transfer stations are being upgraded to accept residential and commercial organics from the surrounding areas.
The Town of Creston launched residential curbside collection of organics in 2022. The City of Castlegar is planning to start residential organics collection in late summer 2023, while the City of Nelson is also working towards residential organic waste diversion through a method known as "pre-treatment." Now is a great time to start planning to participate in this new system if your operations are in these communities or near these facilities.
The new organics processing facilities will accept a wide range of materials, including table scraps, soiled paper, front of house and commercial kitchen food waste, food & beverage manufacturing/retail waste, as well as butchery scraps (small bones and cuts – not full carcasses). As development of organics recycling in the ICI sector begins, we want to hear from you to help us understand your opinions, ideas, barriers, and constraints for participating in organic waste recycling.
Regulations
Currently, no bans or penalties are being implemented to mandate organic waste recycling. Instead, we have lowered tipping fees to reduce the overall cost to the users of this new system. The tipping fee for organics is currently set at $88/tonne (compared to $137.5/tonne for mixed waste), with options for per-container and lower volume disposal. For more details on tipping fees, disposal options, and information on accepted & prohibited materials visit rdck.ca/organics, review the RDCK Resource Recovery Bylaw, or email us (contact details below). In the future, if organics waste diversion goals are not being met, regulations to encourage this change across sectors may be considered.
ICI Organics Recycling Participation
The RDCK will be providing resources to assist in making operational changes, such as back-of-house informational resources for the food and beverage industry. Large and small generators of organic waste are encouraged to start finding ways of participating in organics recycling.
Setting up new a system of waste management in ICI operations may require some additional work and initial investment, however the participation of this sector is important to the success of our region’s waste reduction goals, and more broadly, to improving operating practices related to waste in the region. The RDCK is committed to working with the ICI sector to accommodate as much as possible specific needs for an effective organics recycling program. Direct support and consultation services are available by request. By completing the survey, operators can help us to understand and therefore better accommodate unique requirements.
Please complete the survey (~10 minutes). To complete online, you will be asked to create an account and register to this website. This allows the RDCK to ensure validity of survey responses and keep track of which areas are participating (to improve outreach etc.). Users may fill out multiple surveys in the event they are completing them for multiple operations.
Contact us
RDCK staff are also available to provide the survey over the phone, by mail, and offer support as needed. If you prefer to complete the survey over the phone/by mail, please call or email the Organics Coordinator:
P: 250-551-6657
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The content on this page was last updated July 10 2023 at 9:28 AM
