National Capital Commission aims to reduce post-party waste in Ottawa
OTTAWA -- After hiring people to dig through its own trash last year, the National Capital Commission concluded it could send a lot less to landfills after big events with a little extra effort.
According to audit results published in the NCC's most recent environment report, about 92 per cent of the waste left behind after the Rideau Canal Skateway and Winterlude in 2010 could have been recycled or composted. But only a small amount actually was -- about eight per cent at the Skateway and 22 per cent at Winterlude.
Slightly less than half of the waste left after Canada Day in 2009 could have been recycled or composted, but only about a fifth of the trash made it to blue and green bins instead of the garbage.
Genevieve Mercier, the environmental strategy and program officer for the NCC, said the commission has already started working on improving those figures. The NCC bought 180 new recycling bins for last July's Canada Day and Mercier said she thinks the added convenience will improve this year's results.
"Now we're looking at how much we've accomplished by improving our recycling services," she said.
Of course, festivalgoers can't compost their trash without compost bins. That's why the NCC is developing a pilot compost program, which it hopes to introduce at next year's big events, Mercier said.
"Even if everything is recycled, we still need a compost program," she said.
The NCC is still developing the program and Mercier couldn't say how much it might cost or whether it would be integrated with the City of Ottawa's green-bin program. The commission has also hired a consultant to help make its major events carbon-neutral after determining Canada Day 2009 produced about 439 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
The commission's environment report found room for improvement in a number of other areas as well.
Gatineau Park has 10 new additions to its species-at-risk list, bringing the total of species at risk to 168 on NCC lands with 143 in the park alone. The commission also determined that 248 out of 1,322 of its buildings in active use contain potentially toxic substances, such as asbestos and lead paint.
There were six toxic spills on NCC land during the period from 2009 to 2010 studied in the report. Out of five oil or petroleum spills, four were cleaned up right away, with the fifth resulting in a large amount of diesel fuel spilling into the Ottawa River at Rockcliffe Parkway. The sixth was a sewage spill the NCC considered minor.
The environmental news isn't all bad. The NCC engineered a wetland at Ridge Road in the eastern Greenbelt to filter contamination from the nearby landfill and sent almost 97 per cent of the waste created by tearing down an abandoned schoolhouse to be reused or recycled.
The report also declared its bike-share pilot project, which made 50 bicycles available to the public at four stations, a success. The NCC plans to roll out a permanent program in the spring of 2011.
(Source: The Ottawa Citizen, August 17, 2010)
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