Our Environment
Surprisingly, Canadians are actually increasing their waste production by 1.5% per capita per year despite shrinking landfill space*. Municipalities - including Vancouver** - are attempting to deal with this garbage crisis with shortsighted and extremely costly initiatives such as garbage burning and overland long-hauling waste to American landfills which is not only extremely harmful to the environment but also very costly [please visit www.zerowastevancouver.org to learn more about what the city is planning, hopefully we can put a stop to this!]. Organic waste diversion is one of the quickest and easiest ways for a municipality to drastically reduce its waste. Organic waste that is diverted from the garbage stream can be naturally converted into a positive resource through composting.
Composting is the purposeful decomposition of organic matter into a soil product. Organic waste that is not composted ends up in the landfill where it produces harmful greenhouse gases and toxic material that leaches into the ground and can pollute groundwater. Food waste also takes up valuable landfill space.
Your garbage is about 40 per cent organic waste - composting keeps all that garbage out of the landfill.
Organic wastes that end up in landfills decompose without oxygen and produce methane, a greenhouse
gas that contributes to global warming.
-David Suzuki Foundation
The act of composting is extremely important to a community not only because it reduces overall waste volume but also because it re-introduces vital nutrients into the land.
Lets work together and make some real change - start composting today!
*Paul van der Werf, Michael Cant. “The State of Composting Across Canada - Part 1” Solid Waste & Recycling. Oct/Nov 2006. Vol. 11, Iss. 5
**Metro Vancouver Board Adopts Controversial Waste Disposal Plan” Canadian Press NewsWire, [Toronto] Jan 25, 2008.
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