Wednesday May 19, 2021 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, Editor | Island Social Trends
The commercial tipping fees for kitchen scraps delivered to the Capital Regional District’s (CRD) Hartland Landfill will be going up to $140 per tonne. The increase will be effective January 1, 2022 and represents a $20 per tonne increase (up from $120 per tonne).
The increase was briefly reviewed at the CRD’s Environmental Services Committee meeting today, although the increase has already been approved by the Board.
Today’s short meeting (about 20 minutes) under Committee Chair Barb Desjardins (Mayor of Esquimalt), also briefly discussed how the CRD region is under-resourced for the option to supply viable waste to a large biofuel processing facility. There is a lack of “nearby industrial infrastructure”, it was stated in a report regarding discussions with Edmonton-based biofuel producer Enerkem.
Attending the committee meeting today (chaired from the CRD head office but with most directors participating remotely) were Denise Blackwell (Langford), Lisa Helps (Victoria), Mike Hicks (Juan de Fuca Electoral Area), Geoff Orr (North Saanich), John Ranns (Metchosin), and Mary Richardson (Salt Spring EA / alternate).
Kitchen scraps management:
During the kitchen scraps discussion, Richardson asked if fees would be passed on to residential customers, which the committee would have no confirmation of but which is likely in due course. Hicks said that commercial haulers of kitchen scraps are encouraged to deliver them directly to composting facilities in their local regions (as is done in his neck-of-the-woods in Port Renfrew), and that the increased delivery fee at Hartland is in part a disincentive to bring the kitchen scraps there (part and parcel with CRD’s efforts to postpone Hartland Landfill expansion for as long as possible, with current design capacity expected to be reached in 2049).
However, Richardson said the higher fees were essentially counter-intuitive as there would be less incentive for householders and other kitchen scrap generators (e.g. restaurants) to separate their kitchen scraps if the cost keeps going up.
The January 1, 2022 start date is being made known now so that public and private users of kitchen scraps collection and disposal have time to adjust their budgets, said Desjardins.
