WATCH: Metro Vancouver’s ban on organic waste in garbage cans is sparking a number of new businesses. Elaine Yong reports.
For Rocky Mountain Flatbread, composting their organic waste on site just makes sense.
“It’s a huge carbon footprint to haul it off site every week,” says founder Suzanne Fielden.
In just two to three weeks, organic scraps they dump into a high-tech composter behind their business can become soil used to grow more food.
The company is one of many seeking to become more efficient now that there’s a ban on organic waste in Metro Vancouver garbage cans.
The organic materials ban was put in place to decrease the amount of methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas that adds to global warming, created in landfills. Space is also limited in the landfills and more than 30 per cent of what is sent there is compostable organics.
The increasing emphasis on food scrap sustainability creates economic opportunities for some.
“It’s booming,” says Nick Hermes of his business, called Urban Stream Innovation.
They created the composter that Rocky Mountain Flatbread uses. While it costs $10,000, it can process about 60 kilograms of organics every day—which means it will pay for itself at Rocky Mountain Flatbread in just a couple of years.
– With files from Paula Baker
Comments