Edmonton may be known as the “Festival City,” but one expert says those summertime events could do a lot more to sort and reduce their waste.
Two of the city’s biggest festivals — K-Days and Taste of Edmonton — generate about 360,000 kilograms of waste, according to Courtney Powell. He is the founder of a waste diversion company Elevated Enviro, and he toured both events to assess their waste management practices. Adding in the rest of the festivals — that total would exceed 450,000 kg of waste.
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“It’s an incredible amount,” Powell said. “It’s the paper plates, plastic plates, plastic straws, plastic cups, plastic lids, food waste, napkins: all heading in there.”
Edmonton’s garbage is sorted, but Powell said some items that may be recyclable could end up in a landfill, anyway.
“You can see quite a bit of food waste mixed with paper plates, mixed with plastic straws,” Powell said as he looked inside a garbage can at K-Days on Monday evening. “You can see a lemonade cup closed, holding lemonade in it.
“So a lot of this plastic — is it recyclable? Even if it could be, it’s contaminated with food waste. So even when it’s going to a sorting facility, it’s going to a landfill just because there’s too much food waste with it.”
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Both festivals use a large amount of single-use plastic products, Powell said. He also reported a lack of signage directing guests on where to put their waste and little communication from festival organizers to vendors on how to manage their waste.
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Northlands communications manager Carson Mills says K-Days tries to recycle all aluminum cans, cardboard and cooking oil. He says other waste and organics are handled by the city.
“We’re doing whatever we can,” Mills said.
“Obviously, at a festival like this, it’s a haven for garbage. Garbage happens here, although looking around, it’s not that bad. We try to separate everything as much we can.”
Another issue with festival trash is the amount of food waste it contains, according to Powell. Food waste contaminates a lot of the recyclables, he said, meaning it would be sent to the landfill. A lot of the food waste would also be missed as it’s hard to separate from the other waste.
The Solution
Edmonton’s festivals should use more plant-based products, Powell said, as well as have bins separating recycling and organics from garbage for both guests and vendors.
“When you’re done you can, with the food waste, put it into an organics bin, and then that organics bin can be put into a larger compost bin that gets sent to a larger compost facility. That way you get 100 per cent diversion of those materials.”
Better signage for guests and improved communication with vendors would also help, he said.
“It’s pretty simple stuff. It’s not too complex,” Powell said. “It’s just saying to participants that come to the festival what goes where, and then communicating to the vendors that when you have food waste it goes here, (and when) you have leftover packaging or whatnot, it goes into this bin.”
These steps could divert more than 90 per cent of waste from landfills, according to Powell.
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— With files from Karen Bartko, Global News
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