Composting, anyone?
The latest Town council scheme for reducing waste to the regional landfill is backyard composting. Council voted in favour of developing a program that would encourage the use of backyard composting, thereby diverting a lot of organic waste from the landfill.
The backyard scheme was one of three options before council at its Oct. 24 meeting. The most costly of the three was weekly curbside pickup of organic waste. Another would have the Town provide a drop-off container for organics at a new recycle depot.
According to Director of Operations Roger Borchert’s report, the curbside pick-up would be the costliest, at $5 per household per week. The second option would require the hiring of a depot attendant one day per week.
But as one councillor noted, neither of those options would divert anything from the landfill, which is the point.
“The landfill is not prepared to take what the town could produce,” said Councillor Rob Irwin. “If Option 1 doesn’t work for the landfill then Option 2 won’t either,” pointed out Councillor Doug Bolan. “So Option 3 (backyard composting) is the only one.”
The proposal follows the example of what the City of Calgary has done, which is to purchase composting machines and sell them to residents at a subsidized rate.
Councillor Valerie Tradewell was the lone voice of dissent. She said she didn’t think the scheme would work, because “I don’t think this is something Slave Lake residents are interested in. We need to reduce organics to the landfill and I don’t think this is the way to do it.”
Councillor Laura Vanderwell Ross responded by saying, “I think people are a lot more aware than they were five years ago.”
Council directed administration to draw up a plan, which would combine both the backyard composting scheme with a plan for a collection point in town for compostable and burnable material.

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