| | “Generally our customers have found cost savings with composting as compared to landfill.”
“Composting [organic wastes] is the right thing to do for the environment. Throwing these wastes in a landfill creates greenhouse gases, it’s not as cost-effective, and it’s not as good for the environment as composting. So why not compost? That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” says Kirstin Castro-Wunsch, the President of Cleanit Greenit Composting System Ltd.
Castro-Wunsch is talking about Cleanit Greenit’s new project, funded by the AESA Processing Based Program and the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program. The project follows up on an earlier AESA-funded study conducted by Trimark Engineering Ltd. That study identified the amounts and types of waste generated by agri-food processors, the amounts diverted for other uses, and the barriers to diversion for other uses (see Green Matters, Spring 2006).
Cleanit Greenit is an Edmonton-based composting facility. “The Cleanit Greenit composting technology is an aerated static pile system, which we’ve designed. It’s approved by Alberta Environment and meets the national standards from the Canadian Council of Ministers for the Environment,” notes Castro-Wunsch. The facility recycles organic wastes into landscape products.
In Phase 1 of the project, which runs from January to the end of March 2007, the project team will be interviewing food processors to find out what the barriers are to diverting their organic wastes to a composting facility like Cleanit Greenit.
Castro-Wunsch says, “We have some idea of what some of those barriers are. For example, the food processing company might be tied into a waste contract already and they can’t separate the organics, or there may be issues like loading docks not set up properly. Sometimes it’s as simple as they don’t know that we exist and they could be doing this. And sometimes it’s just that the company is so busy with its main business that it has no time to take on something new.”
In Phase 2, starting in April 2007, the project team will use the information about barriers to develop and conduct a pilot program with about 6 to 10 food processors in the Edmonton region. “We want to get them over the barriers and started [diverting their wastes to composting], and then if the economics work out at the end of the pilot, we’re just going to keep it going,” explains Castro-Wunsch.
She adds, “Some companies that already use our composting facility include Save On Foods, Labatt’s and Molson’s, and they have been doing it for years and very successfully…. Generally our customers have found cost savings with composting as compared to landfill.”
If your food processing business is interested in participating in this project, contact Kirstin Castro-Wunsch or Stacey Aidun, the project manager, at 780-488-7926.
Improving your farmstead’s environment
Would you like to make your farmstead safer and healthier? The Beneficial Management Practices Environmental Manual for Alberta Farmsteads can help.
This new manual is the final one in a series of seven beneficial management practices (BMP) manuals developed for rural Albertans. The other six manuals focus on various commodity areas and are designed for producers. The Farmsteads manual is unique in that it applies to farmstead and acreage owners as well as producers.
“This manual helps people gain a greater understanding of environmental risks associated with their farmsteads, and it provides management options to reduce those risks,” says Roger Bryan of Alberta Agriculture and Food (AF). “It addresses potential environmental risks associated with water supplies, as well as the storage and handling of pesticides, fuel and fertilizer.” Other topics in the manual include farmstead wastes, household wastewater, nuisances such as dust, odour and noise, and energy efficiency. And each chapter includes contact information for agencies that can provide more information on the topic.
“Producers who have participated in an Environmental Farm Plan Workshop may notice that these topics are familiar,” adds Bryan. “That’s no mistake! This manual was prepared to be a resource for producers who have completed or are completing their Environmental Farm Plans.”
This manual and the others in the BMP series are available free of charge by calling AF’s Publication Office (1-800-292-5697). They can also be downloaded from the AF website, www.agric.gov.ab.ca. |
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