Mayor Peter Fenwick said a backyard composting strategy in his town is making a big dent in garbage being sent to the landfill.
It was in early June the town of Cape St. George took delivery of 200 backyard composting bins as part of its waste reduction strategy.
At the same time another 200 bins were delivered for the Bay St. George Waste Management Committee.
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He said during the five-week period since the bins were given out the amount of waste sent to the St. George's land fill dropped by over five tonnes. That five-tonne drop was about 30 per cent of the amount that was sent to the landfill by the town last year during those same weeks.
Fenwick said at the new rate of $164 a tonne the town would have saved almost $800 on its tipping fees.
“These results were well beyond what the town expected to see as a result of the back yard composting campaign,” he said in a prepared release.
The campaign saw almost 200 of the back yard composters given free of charge to almost half the householders in the town.
The town paid the $4,400 the MMSB charged for the bins and the expectation was the town would recoup that investment in about eight months if they were used by half the town. It now appears the payback will be much quicker and the composters will be paid for in about four to five months.
Fenwick said as the Sort-It program and the higher tipping fees are introduced the town is opening its community composting site, which will accept the waste from the residents who do not have back yard composters.
More than 50 of the 200 composter bins the Bay St George Committee purchased have been sold to individuals, local service districts and towns during the last month.
Another 140 are still available for towns and individuals to purchase at the Town of Cape St. George by calling 644-2290.
