Composting diverts 30 per cent of Iqaluit waste

Waste management is a costly and challenging business everywhere, but Iqaluit’s relative isolation makes these costs and challenges even more daunting.

We have come a long way over the past three years. The burning of harmful materials has come to an end and many of us have made great efforts to limit the amount of waste being sent to the land-fill by recycling and composting. While these are admirable efforts, our city is still far from having a viable long-term plan to deal with the amount of waste we are generating.

The City’s current recycling program will inevitably change to meet cost criteria and the likelihood is that we will not be able to recycle all recyclable material coming into our community for the foreseeable future.

It is however important that the City know that this community is committed to waste reduction and diversion.

The current composting pilot project is an excellent waste survey. Results up to this point show that participants are diverting approximately 30 per cent from Iqaluit’s waste stream.

A preliminary waste audit done for the city of Iqaluit by Trow Consulting Engineers in 2002 stated that 70 per cent of Iqaluit’s waste stream was either organic or paper waste – 70 per cent!

To quote the aforementioned audit: “If a 50 per cent capture and recovery rate (of these organic and paper materials) were established the annual waste stream could be reduced by up to 1750 tonnes.”

So far, the composting pilot has been a success. Eighty-seven families and 111 children of Iqaluit are participating, and already

5,640 pounds of “garbage” have been diverted from the landfill by only 87 families in just seven weeks.

In the coming months we will begin the actual composting process. We hope that this experiment will prove that it is time to stop burying garbage and start making soil.

Composting is a form of recycling that we can do right in our community, without the costs of shipping south. If piece by piece we can reduce the necessity to use the landfill we will be saving money.

Recycling can be expensive but the costs of filling up our landfill and building a new one are going to be enormous and the costs of cleaning up after ourselves in years to come will inevitably be astronomical.

Erin Brubacher
Iqaluit Recycling Society