Infrastructure growth driving the compost industry across Canada

If our start line for organics recycling had been both a blank sheet and an open chequebook, it would have been easier to fully implement the infrastructure needed to capture the potential that recovering organic residuals offers for soil health, climate change improvements as well as local jobs. Infrastructure here refers to many things, including regulations, standards, equipment and processing capacity, education, and market development.

But when we started, other infrastructure already existed. Established contracts were in place. Opinions and mindsets needed to change. Real-life proof as well as leaps of faith were required.

Today, organics recycling has become established as an integral part of the waste management infrastructure across Canada. Following are some of the most recent developments in our industry.

• The City of Edmonton and the University of Alberta are expanding their current composting infrastructure, having announced the selection of Viessmann Group/BIOFerm Energy Systems’ high solids anaerobic digestion (AD) technology to extract energy from collected organic residuals collected from Edmonton’s residential and IC&I sectors. The next step is the selection of a contractor for the construction of the facility, which will be located at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre. The new AD facility is expected to be operational in 2017, enabling the 40,000 tonnes of organic residuals processed annually through the system to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 42,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, while producing over one megawatt of renewable electricity and 40,000 gigajoules of renewable heat. And, the facility will be manufacturing CQA-certified compost for improved soil health and vitality.

• The Standards Council of Canada through its operating agency, BNQ (Bureau de normalisation du Québec) has issued Draft Standard D0413-200-4: Organic Soil Conditioners – COMPOSTS for public consultation and input. Originally paralleling regulatory direction from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and provincial/territorial ministries through the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME), the draft standard incorporates scientific, operational and product quality updates important to enhancing compost’s market development. 

The public review period is open until August 25, 2015 with the draft documents accessible through www2.bnq.qc.ca/en/index.html, in the public enquiries section.

• Canada’s largest retailer, food and pharmacy leader, Loblaw Companies Ltd., is teaming up with Dr. Martin Gooch of Value Chain Management International, leaders in the field of food waste reduction and traceability, along with the Compost Council of Canada, to conduct an in-store food waste study with the purpose of measuring the extent of food waste occurring in a produce department, to determine which factors have the greatest impact on generating food waste.

• Winnipeg Harvest, the non-profit, community-based food bank in Winnipeg and founding member of Food Banks Canada and the Manitoba Association of Food Banks, has teamed up with Green Manitoba and the Compost Council of Canada to conduct an extensive waste audit throughout their operations to assess reduction and diversion opportunities for the over 760,000 kilograms of total food waste culled annually from incoming donations.

• Club Coffee, the largest roaster, contract manufacturer and distributor of packaged coffees in Canada, is working on the development of a 100-percent certified compostable coffee pod to address growing consumer concern with waste being created by the over $1 billion (2014 sales) single-serve coffee pod industry in Canada.

In the context of all these and many other initiatives, it is also encouraging that the CCME is about to embark on a national study titled Opportunities and Barriers for Organic Waste Reduction & Diversion. To be built through a national stakeholder survey, the report will summarize the technical, social and economic barriers preventing the diversion of organic residuals and identify tools and best practices that could support governments’ efforts to increase diversion through composting, anaerobic digestion and other techniques.

Thus plans for the compost industry’s growth continue to be put in motion, and become reality, allowing organic residuals the increasingly significant role they truly deserve – in environmental, economic, social and health solutions in Canada.