Nelson's FoodCycler program may be less effective than a curbside organics collection system would be, according to an independent evaluation of the city's organics diversion pilot program.
Council is considering continuing its pre-treated organics pilot program in Fariview for another year to gather more conclusive data, but has as yet made no decision.
The city's climate action staff presented a third-party evaluation report prepared by Yarrow Environmental and Transform Compost Systems to council at its Nov. 8 meeting.
The 88-page report, which can be found at https://tinyurl.com/a7ws95uf, evaluated the social, environmental and technical aspects of the pre-treated organics pilot program and also compared it to a more conventional curbside organics collection model.
The program pilot of the countertop FoodCycler took place over 13 months in 2023-24 in Fairview. The pilot included a plan to have an evaluation report done by a third party.
The pilot was undertaken as an alterative to joining the Regional District of Central Kootenay's proposed curbside organics program that would collect kitchen waste and take it to the central composting facility near Salmo. Both Creston and Castlegar have curbside pickup of organic waste, which is taken to the Salmo site.
The FoodCycler grinds and dehydrates food waste, reducing the weight of the food scraps by approximately 75 per cent on average, and reducing the volume by up to 90 per cent, resulting in a nearly odourless residue that can be put in a garden or compost, or placed in one of two neighbourhood receptacles to be picked up by waste collection crews and taken to the Salmo site.
Nelson is the first municipality in the country to experiment with this approach as an alternative to hauling organic waste to a landfill or central composting facility.
The rationale for the program was that the FoodCycler would reduce greenhouse gases by eliminating truck transport of heavy, wet material and by avoiding the production of the greenhouse gas methane created by decomposing food waste in a landfill or central composting site. It was also hoped that by keeping food waste out of curbside collection, conflict with bears would be reduced.
High satisfaction levels
In the Fairview neighbourhood, 710 households (76 per cent) signed up for and received a FoodCycler. Across the entire city, 46 per cent of Nelson households with curbside waste collection signed up for and received one.
In a spring 2024 survey of 670 Fairview households, 87 per cent said they had enjoyed using the FoodCycler. Survey respondents were very likely (77 per cent) or likely (14 per cent) to recommend the FoodCycler to others. Ninety-one per cent stated they plan to continue to use the FoodCycler in the long term.
The most common challenges that residents experienced with their FoodCyclers were a jammed bucket or other mechanical issues (34 per cent in the first batch of appliances, hardly any on the later ones), odour (21 per cent), noise (18 per cent), and unprocessed food waste (16 per cent).
Two other reported challenges were the weight and size of the appliance and the need to keep it in above-freezing temperatures in the winter.
The evaluation report concluded that city staff did "an outstanding job" of implementing the program and educating the public about it.
Waste reduction
According to the report, in August 2023, before the pilot began, 52 per cent of the Fairview curbside garbage consisted of compostable materials. In July 2024, this was reduced to 40 per cent of Fairview garbage.
In July 2024, for households with FoodCyclers, 37 per cent of household curbside garbage consisted of compostable materials. For households without FoodCyclers, 50 per cent of the garbage was compostable materials.
Data from three B.C. communities with curbside organic collection (known as green cart programs) show residential curbside garbage with approximately 30 per cent compostable materials, lower than the 40 per cent compostable materials found in the Fairview residential garbage in July 2024.
"These data indicate that B.C. green cart programs focusing on food waste have resulted in a lower proportion of compostable materials in the garbage than the FoodCycler pilot project in the Nelson Fairview neighbourhood," the report states.
Quantity of organics diverted
The evaluators calculated that there was a 32 kilogram per household per year decline in food waste in the Fairview garbage stream due to the pilot project.
Green cart programs from other B.C. communities have achieved significantly higher rates of organics diversion, the report states, citing annual kilograms of decline in food waste per household of 54 kg at the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB), 84 at the Town of Creston, 109 at the Regional District of Nanaimo, and 222 at the City of Peterborough.
The report speculates there could be several reasons for the FoodCyclers' lower rate of diversion. Using the FoodCycler requires more steps and more effort, some types of food-soiled paper cannot be put in a FoodCycler, and the capacity of the FoodCycler is limited to one kilogram.
Also, a persistent unanswered question is the degree of self-hauling. How many people drive their own garbage including organics to the transfer station at Grohman, and how would the answer affect the report's statistics?
The report notes that in all types of organics diversion programs, a policy banning organics from the garbage and enforcing this ban are important tools. Several communities in B.C. have such bans including the Regional District of Nanaimo.
Greenhouse gas emissions
The implementation of the pre-organics pilot resulted in a reduction of 1,633 tonnes of GHG emissions as measured over a 30-year period, the report concludes. Most of these emissions would have been produced by methane emissions from a landfill, not from the hauling of the material to the landfill.
"Landfill methane emissions make up the vast majority of GHG emissions associated with organic waste," the report states. "Transportation emissions are an extremely small portion of emissions."
The report calculates that the reduction of GHG emissions caused by the Fairview pilot project was 1.76 tonnes per household per year compared with 2.11 in the RDKB green cart program and 3.11 in the Creston green cart program.
Wildlife attractants
The FoodCycler program raised expectations that it might reduce the number of bears looking for urban food, but the report concludes that it was not possible to calculate the effect of the program on wildlife issues in Fairview over such a short pilot period.
It states that food waste put curbside in a green cart, and the residue from the FoodCyclers dug into compost or a garden, can also be a wildlife attractant.
The residue from a FoodCycler, referred to by the city as a soil amendment, is not compost but dehydrated food, which can be reconstituted if put in garden soil in too-high concentrations.
"There remain some unknowns regarding the level of wildlife attraction the pre-treated material poses when present in a backyard composting bin and dug directly into garden soil."
City staff at the Nov. 8 meeting suggested three possibilities to council: continue the pilot for another year to gather more data, pivot to a green cart program, or expand the FoodCycler program to cover the whole city. A fourth suggestion came from Councillor Rik Longtenberg who said the city could also use a mix of both technologies.
Council did not make a decision on these choices, but this will be revisited on Dec. 3 when it will examine the budget implications of each choice.