Composting within the next year in Simcoe County
by Richard Blanchard

All Simcoe county residents may have their compostable items picked up within the next year.

Simcoe county's Corporate Services committee gave provisional approval last week to begin the tender process which could see the organic pickup expanded to all county municipalities as early as next February. Other start dates could be later in 2008 or early 2009.

Adjala-Tosorontio residents have seen a variety of organic items picked up for the past five years and its progress will be used a a template for the county wide system.

Rob McCullough, Environmental Services Manager, said that the county had delayed expanding the program in the past due to the lack of organics processing facilities.

"This has changed," said McCullough. Several organics processing facilities, within 100 kilometres of Simcoe county, have capacity for Simcoe county's organic material.

He said, that based on the participation rate by Adjala- Tosorontio residents, that between 11,000 and 15,000 tonnes of waste could be diverted from the county's landfill sites per year. Costs of processing are estimated to be slightly above or below the $100 per tonne level.

The county environmental services department is also looking at a processing operation, in the long term, within the county. It is expected that processing costs will run between $90 and $120 per tonne for each tonne of organic material collected. County council will make a final decision on the organics proposal next meeting.