May 2-8 is International Compost Awareness Week!

​This week, May 2-8 is International Compost Awareness Week which began in Canada in 1995.

Here in Ontario, the previous government launched the Food and Organic Waste Framework in 2017 with an ambitious goal of eliminating organic waste from landfill by 2022.

Composting improves the soil, reduces landfill costs, and reduces methane emissions from landfills. Methane is a strong greenhouse gas.

I remember when Kingston's Green Bin program began in 2009, when I was the co-chair of the Kingston Enrivonmental Advisory Forum. Even then we knew that two areas which need work are the institutional/commercial/industrial (ICI) sector and highrise buildings, as well as overall composting capacity.

New highrises in Ontario are now required by the building code to have green-bin infrastructure. Older ones will require extra work and promotion of organics recycling by residents. Many high rises handle waste through private companies, not the municipal waste stream, so the provincial government has to get involved.
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Of course there are practical problems to overcome but I hope to help move Ontario's Food and Organic Waste Framework forward so that we can divert more or less all organics from landfills as soon as possible.

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