LAKELAND – Once household waste is dropped off at the curb, it is easy to forget about discarded food wrappers and product packages. But once the trash is taken out, it enters an entirely different system – waste management.
Dealing with the literal tonnes of waste brought to landfills costs municipalities millions every year and involves hundreds of acres of land.
To effectively process Lac La Biche County’s household and industrial waste, Lac La Biche council has set aside just under $2.5 million for its waste and recycling management operating budget.
This total covers the costs for all six of the County’s sites - two landfills and four transfer sites - including all salaries and resources, as well as funding for program and servicing costs, according to Molly Fyten, the environmental service manager for the County.
Lac La Biche council has also approved $21,054 for 2022 service-level enhancement initiatives, and approved $310,000 for capital projects to be carried out this year.
The MD of Bonnyville also spends roughly $2.5 million per year to manage waste and recycling in the municipal district alone, according to information provided by Reeve Barry Kalinski in a statement.
These million-dollar budgets are necessary to deal with the volume of waste produced by households and industries within each municipality.
On average, the MD of Bonnyville handles 3,200 tonnes of Class 2 non-hazardous household waste, which is then transferred to a landfill in Thorhild County.
Roughly another 750 tonnes of Class 3 (dry and inert) waste were disposed of in landfills within the MD.
However, these numbers do not reflect waste collected in the City of Cold Lake or the Town of Bonnyville, as both municipalities have their own waste management processes.
In 2021, Lac La Biche’s landfills in Beaver Lake and Plamondon took in a combined total of just over 11,623 tonnes of waste, while diverting a combined total of 1,076 tonnes of material.
Provincial regulation allows landfills to accept 10,000 tonnes of waste materials annually.
To divert unnecessary waste from landfills, the County and MD send recyclable materials to off-site recycling facilities and redirect specific items to recycling holding areas at designated facilities.
In an annual report compiled for Alberta’s Environment and Parks, Lac La Biche County saw a substantive increase of waste in 2021 compared to the amount received at County facilities the previous year.
In 2020, the County saw a combined total of just over 8,000 tonnes being landfilled.
“It’s definitely an increase that we notice,” said Fyten. “That is why we are trying to enhance some of our existing recycling programs and implement new ones such as the compost pad at the Beaver Lake landfill coming this summer.”
County staff are also trying to increase education on proper recycling through workshops and other outreach events.
Tipping fees for contaminated loads – waste loads that have recycling material mixed in – have also been increased by the County to encourage more separation of recycling material from loads headed for the landfill.
Addressing growing garbage costs
One way that municipalities can divert waste heading for landfills is by sorting, processing, and redirecting recyclable items away from the dump. However, this too costs money and investment, something not all municipalities are able to do or are interested in.
“The MD of Bonnyville understands that all recyclables are commodities, and if the materials we collect (and) separate from the waste stream are not of value to an end buyer, then we are not making efficient use of the valuable resources of our time and money,” wrote Kalinski.
Currently, plastics from the MD’s collection bins are dropped at the City of Cold Lake’s Recycling Centre to be marketed.
One recurring issue with investing in and selling gathered recyclables is the high rate of material contamination in “desirable” plastics, noted Kalinski, pointing to the challenges of successfully diverting plastics from landfills.
“If the material (paper, plastic, cardboard, etc.) being sent for recycling is low-grade and/or contaminated with waste products, food, and other hard to recycle products, there will be no end buyer for the collected materials, and it will all be put into the waste stream.”
Fyten also acknowledges that recycling and diverting waste costs money and relies on an unpredictable market.
Municipalities face many challenges as markets that purchase recyclable goods and materials change regularly, which can end up frustrating residents as the programs and associated rules also change, Fyten says.
“While most municipalities realize that the main intent is not to make money by recycling, the ultimate goal is to divert as much waste as possible from our landfills, which is not only good for the environment, but it also saves airspace for our County landfills,” Fyten added. “When we save airspace, we ultimately save money.”
And while there are grants made available through Alberta Recycling Management Authority (ARMA) for municipal recycling programs, overall grants for recycling are rare, according to Fyten.
This leaves little financial reprieve for counties, municipal districts, cities and towns to manage residents’ discarded waste and recyclables.
Household efforts
In many ways, the success of recycling can come down to individual actions and how people separate and dispose of their waste.
In Lac La Biche, the County has a full recycling program for all recyclable household materials, such as paper, cardboard, plastic and metal, at all its landfills and transfer sites, but these items must be sorted and cleaned, said Fyten. This is also the case for many municipal waste transfer sites.
At Lac La Biche’s sites, there are several other recycling programs for materials outside of the standard household scope including used oil, oil filters, paint, baling twine, concrete, asphalt, gravel, Styrofoam, appliances, electronics, wood, lighting fixtures, tires, batteries, and pesticide/fertilizer containers.
The County also hosts two annual Household Hazardous Waste Roundups a year, with the next one taking place on June 11, during Environment Week.
“I am proud to state that for every possible recycling program that is out there and is feasible in our area, the County has it,” Fyten said. “Our sites have literally transformed from ‘dumps’ to proper landfills and transfer stations over the past several years and I have had the pleasure of guiding this transition during my 10 plus years with the County.”
Over the last decade Fyten has toured many landfills and transfer stations across the province and worked with the County to rise to industry leaders in recycling practices for a municipality.
“We are amongst the top in terms of the programs and services we provide,” she said. “We also service our small population with a very large number of transfer sites for our rural residents – and this is something that isn’t observed frequently in other parts of the province.”
In the MD, residents can now bring in grain bags and baler twine to transfer sites to be recycled, which was made possible through an Agricultural Plastic Recycling Pilot Project funded by the Alberta Beef Producers and managed by CleanFarms.
The MD has seven landfill and transfer sites and more than 25 bin locations to collect waste.
