Random Access

April 1 is not a Fool’s Day this year.
It’s a day a lot of people who care about our planet have been waiting a long time to celebrate.
It’s the day that Peel Region launches its long-awaited curbside organics collection program across Mississauga.
If you are one of the growing legion of green nerds who think we are way behind the curve in changing our wasteful (you should pardon the expression) garbage ways, this is a significant development.
It seems that Peel has been talking about a wet organic waste collection since Mel Lastman was still a pup in North York.
It seems as if we have squandered our opportunity as other cities have pressed ahead. Even Toronto somehow got ahead of us on this one since they have the green bin program already. We are one of the last major cities to jump on the wet compost wagon.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, says Lee Ann Mallett, executive director of EcoSource, the local environmental education group that has been carefully watching things evolve since Peel and Mississauga were one of the first to join the blue box brigade in the 1970s.
“Actually Peel has been very progressive in the way it has approached the organics issue,” she says. “It will be developing food quality compost, so it decided to create a whole new facility to process it. We’re really excited about finally getting the organics program but we do want to do it right,” she said.
So there will be rules, as there always are.
Starting in mid-February, homeowners will begin to get the Norseman green bin, (the same model used in Toronto) and an accompanying small kitchen bin delivered to their homes. You will use that to dispose of that old deli meat you never quite got to, the mouldy cheese, the stale muffins, yesterday’s yogurt etc. You can also add paper towels, greasy pizza boxes, shredded paper, pet fur, facial tissue, human hair and those lemon and orange peels that you weren’t sure should go into your backyard compost. No animal waste or diapers as some programs allow though.
Peel residents will use paper bags or compostable plastic bags that will soon appear on grocery store shelves for their wet organics. Andrew Pollock explains that Peel uses a different process than Toronto. They make their wet organics wetter by adding water that makes the plastic float to the top, where it is skimmed off. In Peel the wet stuff will be processed at the $35 million Material Recycling Facility on Torbram Rd. and then shipped to a curing pad near Dixie Rd. and the King sideroad in Caledon.
The resulting compost will be sold to wholesalers so you can buy it back, without knowing it, at local garden centres.
When fully rolled out, the organics should increase Peel’s diversion rate from landfill sites for its curbside programs from by about 10 per cent to 55 per cent. The goal is to hit 70 per cent by 2016.
There’s a catch, of course. Since the amount of waste in the regular garbage stream will fall, Peel residents will only be able to put out two garbage bags of waste a week starting next October, instead of three.
Although no one has yet broached the subject, the next logical step is to consider what Toronto has — garbage collection once every two weeks instead of every week. But one step at a time.
Let’s just be thankful that we will soon have a new garbage stream, appropriately wet of course, to keep our waste out of the earth, the streams and the air.
Hmmm. April 1 isn’t that far away. Time to start hoarding your hair clippings.