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Monday, June 11, 2007 Cape Breton Post

CBRM residents hit pay dirt

New compost facility opens to the public

Section: Front

By Laura Jean Grant,

With a green cart program now in full swing, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality opened the doors to its new compost facility Saturday.

Throughout the afternoon the public was invited to tour the facility, pick up information about composting and recycling and even take home some compost to use in their backyards and gardens.

The CBRM started dropping off about 35,000 green carts May 7 to all residents of single-family dwellings or duplexes in urban and suburban areas of the regional municipality. Green carts are designed to store organic waste materials from the home and yard, like table scraps, food waste, used paper towels, napkins, fish, bones, meat, shellfish and leaf and yard waste like grass and leaves. The material is then picked up and delivered to the compost facility.

And Saturday residents got a chance to see what happens to all that organic waste once it leaves their curb - an important step in raising awareness according to Donnie Burke, manager of the CBRM's solid waste department.

"The big thing is to showcase our facility," he said. "Hopefully it'll increase participation and help the whole process."

Burke noted officials are really encouraged by the initial response to the program.

"We expected 60-65 per cent participation and we're seeing about 80 per cent," he said.

Those who took part in the public tours Saturday got a chance to see the equipment used in the mixing and shredding process and how the material is fed into the tunnels where it composts at set temperatures and conditions for a specific period of time.

Burke said the whole composting process takes about 30 days and, in fact, the first batch of compost from the facility was available for people to take home free of charge.

Among those taking advantage were Rod and Ann Marie Fraser, of Victoria Mines, who planned to use it in their vegetable and flower gardens.

The two said they were impressed with the facility.

"It's super. It's the right way to go," said Rod.

"To think what we can do with the waste off our table," added Ann Marie.

Burke said they plan to continue offering compost to the public for free several times each year. He also expects the compost produced at the facility will be used in several remediation projects in the local area and landscaping companies may purchase the compost for their use.

Henk Roeven, technical manager of Christiaens Controls B.V, who designed the CBRM composting facility, was on hand Saturday and said he's pleased with the finished product.

"It's practical and not too complex," he said, of the state-of-the-art facility.

"A lot of the organic material can be treated in a short time and stabilized," he explained.

Roeven added that in walking through the facility people will notice there's no strong smells as odours associated with the composting process are confined to sealed areas.