The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) is inviting residents to celebrate International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) from May 3 to 9.
To recognize this global event, the SCRD is hosting an educational booth about food scraps composting this Sunday, May 3, at the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden during their annual plant sale.
For residents of the SCRD, two options exist for composting food: you can take food scraps to a local composting facility — Gibsons Recycling Depot or Salish Soils — or you can compost at home. The composting facilities accept all kitchen food scraps including cheese, beans, meat, bones and bread, whereas backyard composting doesn’t reach the same high temperatures, and is best limited to raw vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grinds, and egg shells.
By wasting less food and composting any remaining food, it is possible to reduce the amount of garbage sent to the landfill by one third, saving valuable landfill space and preventing the food from producing methane gas in the landfill, which is a potent greenhouse gas. Composting also produces a great soil amendment.
“Much of the food thrown out in the garbage could have been eaten. By eating what we buy, only scraps are left over to compost,” said Kara McDougall, Zero Waste coordinator with the SCRD.
Drop by the SCRD booth between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. to ask questions, pick up information about reducing food waste, and compositing options. If you bring your own pail or bag, you can take home a sample of compost for free.
In the SCRD, about 12,000 tonnes of waste are sent to the landfills every year. About 30 per cent of this is food waste, the largest component that can be diverted.
“We are calling on all Sunshine Coast residents to compost as much of their food scraps and yard waste as possible,” added SCRD board chair Garry Nohr. “We are already diverting over 50 per cent of solid waste sent to our landfill, and by composting food scraps and yard waste, we can reach our goal of diverting at least 65 per cent of solid waste sent to our landfills by 2016.”
For more information, please visit www.scrd.ca/Yard--Food-Waste.
