The City of Kamloops is hoping to launch a pilot program in September 2021 to start collecting compost (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

CITY COMPOSTING

Kamloops aiming to launch pilot composting project next fall, following local private companies

Nov 24, 2020 | 5:26 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s pick-up day for Friendly Composting, unloading buckets of organic materials and offloading them into the company’s compost bins.

The company was started by Katie Forsyth and roommate Claire McLoughlin in March during the initial lockdown, as they tried to divert the increase in waste from the landfill.

“We were cooking more. We both came from towns that had composting programs and it kind of felt a bit unnatural for us to keep throwing this in the waste, so we looked for a solution,” said Forsyth.

They started by handing out buckets to friends to try, and now eight months later they pick up compost three times a week from 450 households in Kamloops. They then take the organic waste to Barnhartvale.

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“We found Jillian Watt in Barnhartvale in Homewood Farms. She has been a vital partner in all of this. She’s given us a piece of land where we can do our composting,” said Forsyth. “So we dump everything there. We layer it with hay and sawdust, then break it all down back into soil.”

It’s a program the City of Kamloops has been working on implementing. According to streets and environmental services manager Glen Farrow, 30 per cent of all waste at the city landfill is organic matter.

The estimate cost in initial capital will be about $3.6 million with it costing $1.7 million annually to run. The city is still working through the details.

“Piloting some options for a certain component of the community, looking at different cart sizes, looking at different frequency of collection, so are we talking about rotating garbage and recycling and having organics every week, or are we talking about a different model,” said Farrow.

The city is aiming to test the program in September. In the meantime, staff is preparing grant applications to cover some of the capital and operating costs.

“New trucks to be acquired a lot of containers to be acquired. There’s a lot of capital outlay and that’s what that budget ties back to, so understanding what funders are out there and how much funding we can get up to,” noted Farrow.

If grant funding is unsuccessful, city staff would either not go ahead with composting or come back to council with alternate funding options.

Katie Forsyth is a co-founder of Friendly Composting, which picks up people’s organic matter once a week (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

For Forsyth and everyone at Friendly Composting, while a move to city composting would cut into their business, it’s a welcome idea.

“It’s a huge positive. If we can divert food waste for over 90,000 people, then it’s a huge plus,” she said. “I think that is the direction we need to go.”