Salmon Arm has its sights on reducing food waste.
A curbside food waste trial held by the City of Salmon Arm and the Columbia Shuswap Regional District was successful, according to the results issued by Jennifer Wilson, municipal engineer with the City of Salmon Arm, at a CSRD meeting, Oct. 20.
The trial took place from July to September, during which 195 properties reduced their garbage by 22 per cent with. The 195 participants were broken down into 148 single family and 47 bare land strata dwellings.
“People really, really liked this program. They could see a substantial decrease of their garbage,” said Wilson.
On average, each property reduced their garbage by 1.31 kilograms, according to the presentation.
Residences were given door-to-door information guides and were asked to complete surveys in order for the city to gather feedback.
The trial took place south of the Mall at Piccadilly, an area chosen to best represent Salmon Arm, said Wilson.
People who compost loved the system, and more than half of the participants stressed the need for yard waste, as well as varying cart sizes, she said.
“They were very sad to see us going away.”
By the end of the trial, 80 to 90 per cent of the dwellings were participating in reducing their waste, as opposed to the 68 per cent at the beginning of the trial.
Wilson suggested a bi-weekly garbage service would be the best way to save costs.
“One week you’d have recycling and food waste and the next week you’d have garbage and food waste,” she said.
However, she noted that bi-weekly garbage pick up is not as efficient for families and pet owners, even though 82 per cent of the participants agree with the bi-weekly service.
The garbage reduction rate wasn’t as high as expected, she said, with initial predictions suggesting there could be a 40 per cent reduction.
Chad Eliason, director for Salmon Arm, said there were similar statistics with Salmon Arm’s recycling program in the beginning. Over time he expects the numbers of the food-waste program will meet their targets.
“As people got more used to it, our volumes started to normalize and we got to our targets,” he said.
As of now, the city does not have a potential cost for residents to implement the system, said Wilson.
The City of Salmon Arm spent $25,000 on the project and the CSRD spent $5,000 on kitchen catchers and tipping fees at Spa Hills Farms, the company in charge of gathering and processing the waste.
Food waste includes products like fruit, vegetables and meat scraps, as well as soiled paper products, like napkins.
*****Corrections: In a previous edition of the Observer, an article titled "Program cuts food waste" incorrectly stated that food waste had been reduced by 35 per cent which is incorrect.
The area chosen for the food trial does not have a average person household, the average in Salmon Arm is 2.1 people per household.