Arctic weather ideal environment for composting

SARA MINOGUE

A pilot project has shown that waste can be composted in the Arctic, confounding many experts and consultants who had maintained that organic wastes would not break down in the chilly North.

Composting is the natural process of vegetable waste and table scraps decaying into a rich mass that can be used to fertilize soil, but to produce compost that can be safely used, a compost heap must be able to reach 45 C for at least two weeks.

“We’ve achieved that,” says Jim Little, Iqaluit’s number one composting advocate.

Little launched Iqaluit’s first large scale composting experiment in March, when he recruited 100 families to save their organic waste.

After 10 weeks, Little had about 8,000 pounds of garbage. In June, he piled it into a giant heap under a tarp and waited for the microbes — naturally occurring organisms that break down garbage — to start working.

The microbes’ activity generates heat, and higher temperatures mean the composting process is underway. Little, along with workers from the GN’s Department of Environment, monitored the temperatures to make sure the pile reached 45 C. That’s the temperature at which dangerous pathogens are killed.

On Monday, parts of the pile were at 59 C, proving that microbes can work in an Arctic summer.

In fact the project was so successful that on Monday, Little was preparing a presentation to take to the Composting Council of Canada’s annual conference in Gatineau on September 15, a trip that is partly funded by the DOE.

Contrary to experts’ skepticism, Little says “there are distinct advantages to composting in the Arctic.” Little even says that composting is “economically more viable because of the cold.”

In the South, collection of household kitchen waste is smelly, sticky and generally unpleasant. Storage sites tend to attract rodents. In the Arctic, where collection materials will be frozen solid for eight months of the year, the process will be considerably less offensive.

The cold will also delay the composting process until it can be monitored and controlled. In the South, there’s no opportunity to stop the decay, so waste has to be collected, moved and monitored 12 months out of the year, which means higher labour costs.

Here, Little plans to run a year’s worth of compost through the process each summer, without using fuel or electricity to add heat. His plan is to construct a grid of water pipes connected to solar panels that will help defrost the frozen pile, and take advantage of the 24 hour sunlight.

Another advantage to composting in Iqaluit is local demand for the end product.

“Composting is a hard sell in the South because they don’t need the compost. Here’s that’s another advantage — we need the soil.”

At the end of this first cycle, Little expects to have “at least a couple of tons” of compost to blend with local soils. His next project is to stage a demonstration of the product by growing local plants in it.

In the future, he envisions using the soil to help reintroduce tundra plant life all over the City.

“Gravel doesn’t appear naturally around here,” Little says. “It’s because we’ve disturbed the soil, and I think we can restore it.”

A successful composting project could play a major role in Iqaluit’s waste management.

The most recently available statistic, compiled by Trow Associates, says that 25 per cent of what ends up in the landfill could be composted.

Ian Fremantle, the City’s chief administrative officer, questions the value of shipping recyclables South, but is optimistic about any solutions for dealing with solid waste locally.

“Composting at the moment seems to be the most realistic approach,” Fremantle says. “If we can at least deal with that volume… then that’s going to make a big difference.”