City to Explore Options for City-wide Organics Program: Discussion with Residents Next

City Council recently directed its Administration to move forward with developing options for a city-wide organics program to help keep valuable resources out of the landfill.

“Organics represents our single biggest opportunity to reach our target of diverting 70 per cent of our waste from the landfill,” says Brenda Wallace, Director of Environmental and Corporate Initiatives. “This approval is an important next step. We will be launching a series of community discussions in the fall to gather input on the design of our future organics program.”

Preliminary results from a recent Waste and Recycling Survey completed for the City by Insightrix in July 2017 indicate 79% of residents strongly or somewhat support city-wide organics collection for all households.

“A successful waste diversion program, which would include diverting organics, is critical to deferring the closure of the landfill,” Wallace says “It would cost an estimated 26 million dollars to close the existing landfill and 100 million dollars to establish a new one.”

More information on the City’s Waste Diversion Plan can be found on saskatoon.ca/wastediversion.

Exploring options for a city-wide organics program supports the Strategic Goal of Environmental Leadership; this includes the four-year priority to promote and facilitate city-wide composting and recycling as well as the long-term strategy to eliminate the need for a new landfill and to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions tied to City operations. It also supports the Waste Diversion Performance Target to divert 70% of waste by 2023.