Greenhouse plants composting seed
Efforts to remove garbage from waste stream has troubled history in capital
Stewart Burnett
Northern News Services
Monday, November 23, 2015
IQALUIT
Composting has had a bit of a troubled history in the territory's capital, and the Iqaluit Community Greenhouse Society is hoping it can take the reins where the municipal government hasn't been able to prioritize.
Shown here are vegetables from the last harvest. The Iqaluit Community Greenhouse Society is hoping to reinvigorate the spirit for composting in the capital. - photo courtesy of Iqaluit Community Greenhouse Society |
"We know the waste management program with the city is troubled," said Stephen Leyden, president of the greenhouse society.
This summer, composting advocate Jim Little had expressed his frustration with the city after the Bill Mackenzie Humanitarian Society's composting site was destroyed by public works employees due to the 2014 dump fire.
Leyden's group is hoping to establish its own composting program, starting small and using a variety of styles to find out which work best and why in the North.
The city plans to do windrow composting, said Leyden, which involves essentially putting a tarp over a pile of rotting compost.
"We see a number of issues that could be caused by that," said Leyden. "One of the big ones for me is I don't know what kind of a tarp you're ever going to get that will keep ravens out."
The best case scenario with that method of composting would see it creating viable compost several years out, he said, but potentially not to a certifiable standard.
"What we're hoping to do is get everyone in the mind of composting and help to kick start any program the city would have by starting to get people thinking about sorting their garbage and taking out stuff for compost."
Vermiculture, involving worms, and Bokashi composting, involving a sealed-off container, are two ideas the society is testing.
Currently, the society is working with the city to get a dedicated lot in the city for composting. Twelve to 18 months after that, the society hopes to have a compost program up and running that can handle at least all of its 40-odd members. The long-term goal is to have a city-wide program in some capacity.
The group wants to use compost for growing plants for members' use, but also possibly for growing mushrooms and packaging them with sand to distribute or sell, because good-quality compost can be expensive.
Leyden said the society wants to show that composting can work here, that it's not just a southern idea.
Composting can have other benefits too, he added. He pointed to the dump fire, saying compost in the dump raised the temperature and contributed to the problem.
"A lot of people point fingers with the dump fire, but really the only people to blame are ourselves, because we didn't sort our garbage," said Leyden.
If his group can breathe life into a city-wide program, Leyden said he'd consider that 100-per-cent successful.
