New Westminster to launch food scrap recycling pilot project for apartments
Six New Westminster apartment, condominium and townhouse dwellers will soon be the first in Metro Vancouver to be able to recycle food scraps.
On Monday, city council approved a six-month pilot project that will allow those in multi-family buildings to dispose of their steak bones, vegetable scraps and egg shells in an eco-friendly way instead of dumping them in the garbage.
The project will be carried out by Waste Management (WM), a private company contracted by the city to do recycling collection at multi-family residences.
The city has preselected six buildings of different sizes and demographics. The program still has to be presented to the respective property management companies and the buildings' strata corporations.
Residents will get a kitchen catcher to store and transfer food scraps to the proper green waste container.
After six moths, the city and WM will analyze the results and feedback, and recommendations on whether to expand the program will be presented to council.
Coun. Bob Osterman said introducing food scrap collection to single-family dwellings produced a huge decrease in garbage volume, and the hope is providing the service to multi-family buildings will go a long way to the city's target of 70 per cent diversion by 2015.
The pilot project is expected to cost around $12,000, including set-up costs and monthly service fees, and was included in the 2011 operating budget.
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
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