There is no smell!
Considering that this is a year's worth of stinking, slimy waste – decomposing pieces of meat, soured leftovers, rotting vegetables and wet grass clippings – the mind believes it should be a mess. It should stink. Just a year ago, a similar pile of garbage gathered over a 12-month period probably did stink at the landfill on 170 Street in Edmonton, which was the previous destination for St. Albert's refuse.
Well St. Albert, your organic household waste no longer has an objectionable smell. On a warm, spring day, with the sun beating down, there is occasionally a whiff of a slightly pungent earthy odour, very much like that of a well-turned backyard compost heap.
"It doesn't smell here. At most, on a hot summer day, it's got an earthy, manure-like smell," said Susan Berry, site manager of the Roseridge Regional Landfill Site near Morinville, the destination for St. Albert's garbage and organic waste.
Berry is a bit of a Mother Earth figure herself and she cares for the site as others might care for their gardens. What she is growing is compost and she sees her harvest as the reclamation of something that otherwise would be an expensive waste of land and resources.
"I'm a reccy," she says in explanation, as if her previous job working at the City of Edmonton's recreation department explains her passionate love for healthy living in all forms. And that includes a healthy municipal waste disposal system.
Berry is protective of Roseridge's image and reputation.
"Never call it a dump," she said. "We don't allow anyone to dump anything here. We need to be very proud of this operation and how it's helping the community."
Indeed, every vehicle entering the site is monitored and every ounce of refuse is weighed. In the first six months of St. Albert's curbside recycling program, the city's organic wastes amounted to 6,265 metric tonnes.
Before St. Albert changed to its organic waste disposal system in June 2011 it was sending between 850 and 900 metric tonnes of garbage per month to the landfill. Now it's sending at least a third less, between 500 and 600 metric tonnes, said Christian Benson, solid waste programs co-ordinator for St. Albert.
Three ways
St. Albert uses three collection systems. Green bin organics are collected by private contractor Sandstone Enviro-Waste Services and taken to Roseridge. Brown bin contents are picked up by St. Albert public works trucks and are also taken to the landfill at Roseridge. Blue-bag contents are picked up by another private operator, Ever Green Ecological Services, and delivered to a recovery plant in Sherwood Park.
Edmonton has a different system and all its household wastes are picked up and sorted at the Cloverdale plant.
"They have a very modern system too but it's different," Benson said. "Edmonton residents put all household wastes in one bin and it is separated at the plant by machinery. Our residents separate wastes themselves."
Berry points to a fresh windrow of green bin wastes that were deposited at Roseridge that same morning. The waste is already in a windrow but it's easy to see a soiled pizza box, a well-gnawed steak bone, something that resembles chicken and lots of mucky-looking vegetables and grass clippings.
Each new pile will be turned several times within the first week. Water is added and the stirring process adds oxygen so that the whole mess starts heating up. At its hottest, the compost could reach 70 degrees Celsius.
Composting is already well underway within the windrow of waste collected from January to March. It's already richer in colour and it contains fewer visible specimens of day-to-day household waste. The windrow will be left for a full 12 months before decomposition is complete.
New facility
At one windrow, Berry picks up a pile of compost to show the soil-like nature of the material. The compost is black and loose in her hand, yet since it's only four or five months old, she warns others against picking it up.
"It could still have pathogens in it so I'll wash my hands. But before it's finished, even weed seeds will be killed by the heat. The dandelions will be cooked. You won't be able to find a steak bone," she said.
Mature compost is screened to filter out lumps that have not broken down. The mix is cured for another year before it is available for use and so far, none of this past year's compost has been given out to the public.
Composting is slower here than it is at Edmonton's facility, which is indoors. Nonetheless, the Roseridge facility for all household organics will remain outdoors.
"We considered an indoor facility but now it's been decided we will stay with an open, outdoor windrow system," Berry said.
Tenders were to be submitted by May 31 for a new expanded compost-windrow field that will have a concrete or plastic leachate containment liner and a leachate-collection pond.
"It will be on a new compost pad that meets the new Alberta standards for leachate collection and it will have a new protocol for monitoring," Berry said. "The facility will be paid for by everyone – all the municipalities – who put material into that site."
Presently five municipalities use Roseridge but only St. Albert uses the year-round system of organic waste collection.
"Some of the other municipalities, such as Redwater and Morinville, have a partial system during the summer months," Berry said.
Real garbage
St. Albert's brown-bin wastes are in a separate landfill area and there is already a leachate collection system in place there.
For the most part, the landfill is also odour-free because it's constantly being processed, treated and buried. Still, there is sadness to the site because nothing here can be recovered. Some of it could have been composted if it had been properly separated.
When compared to the provincial average, St. Albert has a good recycling record but there is room for improvement.
"Provincially, 29 per cent of material is diverted from the landfill," Benson said. "St. Albert's average last year was 58.2 per cent."
Despite a municipal system that forces residents to sort garbage, too much is still being sent to landfills, he said. In the long term, composting fees are less than landfill fees and landfill costs just keep going up.
"Garbage is useless. It goes to the landfill and stays there and you must constantly have bigger landfills with more space devoted to it. But organics come in and compost goes out. Compost can be reused to enrich the soil. It is a commodity and it can be given back to the community or the contractor can sell it to farmers," Benson said.
St. Albert's residents are fairly conscientious about separating their garbage but both Benson and Berry bemoaned the fact that too many non-compostable plastic bags go in the green bins.
"People need to take the plastic bags and Styrofoam out. They are hard to recycle and they just go to the landfill. People have to be paid to take the plastic bags and other litter from the compost," Benson said, motioning at the same time to several workers on a hill adjacent to the composting windrows.
Like modern-day gleaners, these workers pick through the dirt looking for plastic bags. Once collected, all the bags will be taken to the landfill site.
"Please take your plastics out of the green bins," Berry said.
