Ottawa Residential Municipal Organics Composting Program

This composting program will collect source-separated food organics from over 250,000 households in Ottawa, with subsequent conversion into a marketable compost product, starting in late 2008. Currently, 38.5 percent of the residential waste stream is estimated to be compostable organic material. An additional estimated 70,000 tonnes of organics will be diverted in the first year of the program. Based on 2005 figures, diversion from landfill would climb to 176,210 tonnes/year, with 142,796 tonnes/year of waste landfilled, resulting in a diversion rate of 55 percent. The City is hoping to meet the provincial goal of 60 percent diversion by the end of 2008. The City also plans to implement lower bag limits on landfilled waste. A reduced bi-weekly residual garbage collection maybe also considered, upon review, to achieve over 60 percent. The current project entails the start-up components to implement the organic waste collection and composting. In addition to increased diversion of material from landfill by at least 17 percent over time, the City expects to see a reduction in methane emissions due to less landfilling of organics. Compost has many beneficial applications, and will improve soil conditions and potentially offset the use of herbicides and chemical fertilizers when used in different applications or blended as soil.