Solid Waste Services Profile

By Gabriel Wildgen, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON

It's gross. It stinks. It takes up too much room. Nobody wants it but everybody makes it. It's garbage, and for the Solid Waste Division of the Utility Services Branch of the city of Ottawa, the question of what to do with it is a primary concern. The people who work in this division work diligently to manage the collection and disposal of all the residential garbage in the city.

Besides overseeing solid waste, the Utility Services Branch of the City of Ottawa, run by Director Kevin Brothers, also controls other important aspects of the city's utilities. This includes waste water management, drinking water management and other environmental services. Each of these has its own divisions with its own managers, each with its own goals and problems. These days, however, many of the biggest changes are happening at the Solid Waste Services Division.

Ottawa has not been doing as well as many other Canadian cities as far as solid waste diversion goes. We currently divert about 33 per cent of our residential waste from our landfills, mostly through recycling collection. That may seem like a lot, but cities like Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax are all diverting between 52 and 60 per cent of their waste from landfills. Even Toronto is beating us with a 40 per cent diversion rate. The government of Ontario has asked that all cities in the province raise their residential waste diversion rates to 60 per cent by the year 2008. Ottawa's municipal government has made it its goal to reach this number. It's up to the people at the Solid Waste Services Division to make sure they reach that goal.

Solid waste diversion is an important concept for a variety of reasons. Garbage left in landfills produces methane, which is a harmful greenhouse gas. It also produces a large amount of a toxic substance called leacheate, which, if not properly contained, can contaminate clean water sources. Beyond those environmental reasons, there is the more obvious fact that landfills take up limited space in city areas, and it is costly and unpopular to expand them or build new ones.

Besides regular recycling collection, there are several ongoing projects that have been initiated by Solid Waste Services to help Ottawa divert more of its waste from landfills. One of these projects is the Take it Back program. The program enlists the help of volunteer community businesses, who act as waste collection depots for waste material that does not belong in the garbage or recycling bins. They collect a wide range of waste products for reuse, recycling, or proper disposal. Automotive companies collect such things as used tires, car batteries and used motor oil. Pharmacies ensure proper disposal of expired medications and used needles. Electronics companies will accept anything from used cell phone accessories to computers. The list goes on to include a wide range of household items that are not fit for the dump or recycling plant. A 2002 audit of the Take it Back program found that participating community retailers divert at least 402 tonnes of material from the landfill or City-run hazardous waste depots every year. The program started in 1997 with only three products and 16 retailers. In nine years, that number has shot up to around 100 products and 508 retail partners. "The Take it Back Program is very successful," says George Reimer, one of four waste diversion Coordinators at Solid Waste Services. "It's doing very well."

While programs like Take it Back are useful, it is going to take a much bigger change to reach the goal of a 60 percent diversion rate by 2008. That's where the issue of organic waste comes in to play. The plans are currently being drawn for an organics collection program to be implemented in 2008. This will provide for all household organic waste to be collected separately so it can be composted and turned into soil. This is a welcome alternative to the current practice of dumping it in a landfill to rot while it takes up limited space.

Cameron Neale, a waste diversion coordinator at Solid Waste Services, says organics collection will also greatly expand the lifespan of the landfills. Without an organics collection program, the Trail Road landfill, which takes over two thirds of Ottawa's residential garbage, will probably be completely full sometime between the year 2017 and 2020. But if all of the organics are taken out starting in 2008, the landfill could last up until 2045 or 2050. Neale believes this is the key to reducing the amount of residential waste sent to the landfill. "If you really want to talk about reducing waste at the curb side, organics is where it all is."

When organics collection commences, every single family home in the city will receive a 120 litre green organics bin, which will be delivered to their doors free of charge. Organic materials, including food waste, used paper towels, diapers, will all be put in these bins rather than the garbage bin. Chris Wood says that Ottawa is lagging behind many municipalities in Ontario. For example, Toronto's Green Bin organics collection program is already an ongoing success.

One of the only foreseeable obstacles to the organics collection program is what Neale calls the "Yuk" factor. By this he means that some people may find the idea of dealing with the odour and grime of organic waste gross and will not want to participate in the program. Neale says this shouldn't be too much of a problem, though. "To me, that's an argument that doesn't really fly. The organic waste is either going to be in one bin or the other, so what's the difference?"

The Trail Road landfill already has an operational composting facility located on the Northwest section of the landfill, but for now it is mainly used to compost yard waste. This includes leaves, branches, grass clippings, or anything else that people put in large paper yard waste bags. The facility takes about 25, 000 tons of yard waste a year, most of which is collected in the peak periods of spring and fall. Household organics collected on the curb side would be processed in a similar manner, but the process would be more expensive. This is because household organic waste produces a much more unpleasant odour than yard waste. To prevent this bad smell from bothering nearby residents, the composting material would have to be contained until all odour-causing pathogens were killed.

Although the process itself would initially be more expensive than just putting organics into a landfill, it does leave the door open for new money-saving opportunities. First, by expanding the lifespan of the landfills, it would save the big cost of starting a new one. Secondly, it would enable the city to implement a bi-weekly garbage collection that would replace the weekly collection it has now. This would save the city about $7.6 million dollars over a four year period in collection contracts, while encouraging residents to be less wasteful. The logic behind this is that if people put all of their organic waste in their green organics bin, then they will not need to worry about the smell building up in their garbage cans over two weeks.

There is currently another project in the works that may help with waste diversion. This is a partnership with Plasco Energy Group Inc., a new company headed by Rod Bryden that has a unique method of getting rid of solid waste. They have proposed using plasma technology to vaporize garbage by burning it at extremely high temperatures. This process will be combined with a refinement stream to produce steam and fuel that will be used to generate electricity. Only about one fifth of the energy created will be used to run the facility. The rest would be sold back into the power grid. Guy Leblanc, a chemical engineer and marketing and sales manager for Plasco, says the only leftover materials will be a glass-like ?slag' that can possibly be used as an aggregate road construction material. The only emissions would be from burning the fuel, which would have cleaner emissions than natural gas. All of this would cost the city about $40 a ton, the same amount as tipping fees for putting it in a landfill. "I know it sounds too good to be true," says LeBlanc, "But we are actually going to do it." A demonstration facility, which will be able to process 100 tons of solid waste a day, is currently being constructed beside the Trail Road Landfill. It will be the first such facility in the world. "Its going to put Ottawa on the map, that's for sure," says LeBlanc.

Chris Wood, a waste diversion coordinator at Solid Waste Services, is sceptical of the plan. He points out that it has never been done before, and there are many possible complications. There are still many environmental tests that have to be done on the facility and its by-products before it can be approved as a viable alternative to landfills. "There is no magic bullet that is going to solve the waste issue," says Wood. "It's going to take a combination of several approaches to meet our diversion target."

Solid Waste Services has been working with the city's communication department on a publicity campaign that will get the public more involved in waste diversion. Kathy Fischer, the project manager, says that it has been difficult to get the campaign off the ground because the municipal elections have slowed everything down at City Hall . She said it was also hard to get everything going because it took a long time to plan all of the different facets of the campaign.

One of the first things Fischer's team did was commission Decima polls and focus groups to determine public attitudes on waste management. These polls helped determine which people in the city were recycling and trying to reduce waste and which ones were not. The study groups were a useful tool in determining exactly which message would be best for getting through to the public. The slogan "Rethink Garbage" received widespread approval and it is now the official calling sign of the campaign.

The public launch of the campaign was in June of this year. Fischer says that it was done to mostly just to let the media know what they were doing. The campaign got off to a slow start over the summer. They have begun getting the word out by putting ads on buses. The plan is to expand this campaign within the next few months with more bus boards, bus shelter ads, as well as radio advertisements on CFRA and Magic 100. Ideally, Fischer says she would like to have a much more intense, long-term advertising campaign, including television ads, but she says she simply does not have enough money for it.

The city only gave her a budget of $300 000 a year, which she says does not go very far. In order to make up for this lack of funds, Fischer has tried to get corporate sponsors on board. She says she has two potentially big deals with large corporations in the works that would help her campaign immensely. Although they look promising, they are not yet a sure thing so Fischer has asked that the names of those corporations not be printed. In the meantime, she has to make do with the limited resources she has.

Not only is she limited in money, but also in staff. After municipal amalgamation five years ago, the city cut a lot of staff from the communications department. In order to make up for this, Fischer has asked for volunteers from across the city to come out and help with the campaign. This has worked well, as Fischer now has about 30 volunteers. She could have had even more but she does not have enough jobs for all of them. The volunteers have been helping by giving seminars at libraries and will soon be making appearances at malls to hand out Rethink Garbage pamphlets to help raise public awareness.

Fischer says that out of all these volunteers, Cassandra Petrella has been exceptionally helpful. Petrella, also a fulltime student in her third year at Carleton University, has been working part time for Solid Waste Services for the past two years as an administrative assistant. She hopes to become a school teacher after she graduates. "I love working with children," says Petrella. It was this love of kids that inspired her to start her own program that would get children involved in waste diversion.

When Fischer heard of this, she immediately wrote to Petrella to ask if she would help out with the Rethink Garbage campaign. Petrella agreed and is now the volunteer coordinator for the campaign. One of her responsibilities has been to help organize and produce the six library compost seminars that have been held so far. She also plays a key role in bringing the message to children in the city by visiting summer camps where she sets up games that make recycling fun for the children. For instance, she had the kids run through an obstacle course where they had to place various recyclable items in their proper bins. Soon she will be going to schools across the city to get young children involved in similar after-school programs. Petrella say she has a lot of faith in the campaign. "It's definitely headed in the right direction," she said. "And volunteers are an essential part of that."

Fischer also has other plans designed to bring the Rethink Garbage message to local schools. To do this, she enlisted the help of Rose-Marie Batley, the Executive Director of EarthCARE, an organization that specializes in educating the youth on environmental issues. Together, they adopted a plan that targets students of all ages. For children between kindergarten and grade three, there will be a play that will teach them what they can do to make a difference in waste diversion. They are currently producing a video that will speak to older elementary school students about recycling and waste reduction. As for high school students, Fischer is developing a plan to create a "mascot challenge," which will ask each school to submit an original mascot that will represent the Rethink Garbage message. She says the winner would probably be announced on Earth Day, hopefully garnering media attention for the campaign in the process.

Batley, who includes teacher, principal, and school board superintendent on her résumé, says that educating the youth on these issues is very important. She says that they are more receptive to new ideas than adults. By bringing the Rethink Garbage campaign to schools, Batley and Fischer hope that they will be helping to create a new generation of waste-conscious citizens. Also, they hope the children will bring the message home to their families. "All of the EarthCARE programs have take-it-home components," Batley explains. "Kids are very powerful messengers."

With a lot of hard work and public cooperation, it seems quite possible that Solid Waste Services could meet their garbage diversion goals. It's a good thing somebody is willing to deal with our trash or we'd have one big, smelly problem on our hands.