A week-long Zero Waste Challenge audit conducted at two St. James Community Service Society facilities recently showed that our organization may be able to cut down on garbage going to the landfill between 30 and 75 percent. Increased recycling and composting will mean a savings in garbage collection that can go back into operations, as well as a lighter environmental footprint.

 

“We all want to save the environment, right?,” says property manager Noorjahan Rana, who led the effort at Cordova House and Victory House along with maintenance manager Keith Coulter, when she was asked about the decision to participate.

 

Sponsored by the Strathcona Business Improvement Association (www.strathconagreenzone.com/zerowaste.html), the program aims to reduce landfill waste produced by local businesses, improving our environmental impact and reducing costs by diverting waste out of the garbage through recycling and composting.

 

The audit was successfully completed in October and the Challenge will begin in earnest in November, with the SBIA picking up recyclables and compost in colour-coded bins. The program is currently being run on grants with the hope of eventually being a free or low-cost service offered to SBIA members.

 

Most diversion came from food waste that used to go into the garbage but will now go into compost bins supplied and collected by the SBIA. Because food waste will be picked up daily, there should be no added rodent problems, SBIA sustainability coordinator Sophie Agbonkhese says. The association will also pick up items like batteries and printer cartridges for recycling which were, until now, gathering dust in people’s offices, Noorjahan says.

 

“Amazing” was the reaction by the kitchen, housekeeping, and front office staff, says Noorjahan. “I didn’t get one person who said, ‘Why do we have to do this extra stuff?’ No one complained. Everyone was very excited about it, very cooperative about it.”

 

The trial has led to other small changes within the organization as staff becomes more conscious of what they are putting in the garbage. For example, food services manager Marie Headrick replaced the plastic coffee stir sticks with wooden ones. Even residents are getting on board as recycling boxes are now put out for the free local newspapers that used to end up in the trash. “This is really a very collaborative effort,” Noorjahan says. “All of us had to work together. It was team effort.”

 

More St. James facilities will participate in the program, Noorjahan says, as the program is phased in over time.