By Kathy Gallant

City council unanimously supports curbside compost collection project

May 9, 2017 | 2:22 PM

Meadow Lakers will soon have the option to sign up for a new curbside bin, this time for compost collection.

Mayor and council unanimously approved the addition of this program. As a delegation at the May 8 city council meeting, Layne Shkopich of Shkopich Enviro was present to ask for approval to establish the new service, and provided a report about how the program would work as a part of the waste diversion program.

The document indicated that it would only available to residents of the city of Meadow Lake at this time, and would include unbagged leaves, grass clippings, non-woody vegetation and plant waste. The pickup would occur every two weeks, on the same cycle as recycling. The program would be seasonal weather-dependent and run from May to October,.

Several council members had questions about how the program would work.

“Have you thought about the percentage of current pickups that you would need to make a go of this?” Coun. Curtis Paylor asked.

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“Ideally I would like to see 50 users sign up to make it feasible,” Shkopich responded. “So what I would like to do is a mail out and a bit of advertising, but 50 users would see the program kick off – that is our target start goal.”

He added that a similar pilot project took place in North Battleford last year with positive success.

“There were had very good results with it,” he said. “Having this program means keeping it out of the waste stream for the city.”

Shkopich said the bins would be marked as organic and will be a dark green colour.

Another question that was posed by Coun. Glen Winkler was about the proper use of the bags and bins and how to instill the proper messaging for users.

“My view is the people that are going to sign up for the service will use correctly, so they would probably respect the program,” Shkopich said. “Our trucks are also equipped with cameras so we will see if garbage is being dumped.”

Shkopich added certain items – large branches in particular – will be rejected from the service. 

Included in the application was a recommendation to make the city’s current compost site the delivery point.

“The quality of the compost created may actually be improved by the provision of additional green organics. While the site currently has separate piles for branches, grass, leaves and garden vegetation, city staff believe the compost site can be run with all materials being comingled except branches,” the report from city clerk Jessica Walters stated.

kathy.gallant@jpbg.ca  

On Twitter @ReporterKath