Waste Not

Open to the World, Autumn 2004

On first appearance, Barry Friesen’s office doesn’t strike you as the mecca of waste management. On the fifth floor of a tall glass building, it looks like any number of non-descript government offices in downtown Halifax. Bland and uninspiring, it’s the exact opposite of what is taking place inside. Since the mid-1990s, Friesen and his colleagues have developed policies and programs that have inspired specialists from across Canada and as far away as Japan and Russia to make the pilgrimage to Nova Scotia to learn the secrets of what makes the province a leader in the field of solid-waste management. Nova Scotia’s enviable composting and recycling system has come a long way since its less admirable days in the late 1980s. In 1989 alone, the province generated 641,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste; much of it was sent to landfills and open dumps where it was burned. That year no more than 3% of the province’s waste was diverted from the dump. Jump ahead 15 years, and today 46% of the province’s garbage no longer ends up in a landfill.

Not only is the province’s solid-waste management system reducing air pollutants and energy consumption but it also is saving taxpayers’ money, according to a recent study by GPI Atlantic, a non-profit research group based in Glen Haven, N.S. Compared to the old landfill system, the new process saves at least $31 million a year, or $33 for every Nova Scotian, says the study, which was released in July.

When higher estimates are used, the savings could be as much as $168 million annually. Taking into account a range of factors—from operating and capital costs for curbside pickups to land filling to new jobs in the recycling industry—the report found that the biggest financial benefit of the new system is in the energy saved by using recycled materials instead of materials extracted from natural resources.

So how did the province get to where it is today? To understand the story, you have to go back to 1989. That year environment ministers from across the country, including Nova Scotia, set a nationwide target to divert 50% of solid waste from disposal by the year 2000. “Nova Scotia at the time was doing nothing,” says Friesen, the solid waste resource manager with the Department of Environment and Labour.

That quickly changed. “What made us do it?” asks Friesen, a mechanical engineer who has been with the environment department since 1992. “There are no jobs in burning [garbage], but there are jobs in processing it,” he says. At the same time, Nova Scotia was witnessing its ground fishery and other resources decline, so government and community leaders began to see garbage not simply as something to be sent to the dump but as another potentially valuable resource. “We can help the economy and the environment at the same time,” says Freisen.

After agreeing to the national target, the challenge for Nova Scotia was to create a system that would enable it to reach its goal. The province succeeded in diverting 50% of its waste from landfills for a sixmonth period in 2000, according to the GPI report. It has since dropped slightly to 46%, but its overall waste-diversion rate is still higher than any industrialized country.Getting there was first the result of the Nova Scotia Environment Act, which, when it became law in January of 1995, formally adopted the national 50% diversion target. The second initiative was the Solid Waste Resource Management Strategy, which developed through government, public, and industry consultations.

The province’s new waste-management system—involving recycling, composting, and better landfills—began in 1996. It wasn’t cheap. Implementing the system resulted in an increase in operating and amortized costs to $72.5 million in the fiscal year 2000 from $48.6 million before the program. Almost half of the initial cost increase was because of new equipment in Halifax, says the GPI report.

Municipalities contribute a large portion to the capital and operating costs of collecting and managing recyclables, organic materials, and waste in Nova Scotia. In addition to municipal systems, the Resource Recovery Fund Board (RRFB), a non-profit organization set up by the government, operates the tire, bottle-deposit, and paint-recycling systems in the province. The RRFB funnels portions of profits from the recycling programs back to municipalities and also invests in other businesses related to the recycling industry. During the fiscal year 2004, the board provided $7.2 million to the province’s 55 municipalities for local recycling, composting, and other diversion programs; $7.5 million in handling fees to Nova Scotia’s 84 Enviro-Depots; $320,000 to private-sector projects; and $1.4 million in ongoing education.

Leading Edge

The Lunenburg Regional Recycling and Composting Facility near Bridgewater was a leader in the province and country when it was built 10 years ago. Consisting of a recycling plant, composting facility, landfill, household-hazardous-waste depot, construction and demolition waste processing, and municipality-collected septageand- treatment system, it was the first of its kind in Canada. “We were ahead of the rest of the country,” says David Daniels, the facility’s solid-waste operations manager.

In the early 1990s, local politicians were faced with a daunting decision.The incinerator at Whynott Settlement, where the recycling facility is now located, required massive upgrades that would cost millions of dollars.They had to decide whether to simply throw money at the old system or look for an alternative.They decided to look into recycling.Owned by the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg, the Town of Bridgewater, the Town of Lunenburg, and the Town of Mahone Bay, the facility costs more than $3 million a year to operate and serves more than 40,000 area residents.

The region also became the first in the province to hit the 50% waste-diversion target. Last year it diverted 53.1%, or about 24,000 tonnes, of material from the landfill.The hard part, says Daniels, is staying there and getting the older businesses and industry in the area to come onboard. The problem isn’t unique to Lunenburg.The GPI report criticizes what it calls inadequate provincial systems for dealing with construction and demolition waste, which comprises 25% to 30% of the waste stream and calls for increased recycling in the business community. Apart from the environmental benefits of waste reduction, one of the economic benefits of the Lunenburg facility is the jobs it has created. The facility employs as many as 40 people in the peak summer season. Across the province, the new waste-management system has created employment in the industry valued at between $2.8 million and $3.9 million a year, with spinoff benefits of up to $5 million, according to the GPI report.

Being a leader in solid-waste management has spawned opportunities for many companies in the province. Dillon Consulting Ltd., with offices across the country, has done a significant amount of work in the Caribbean to help develop new institutions and programs to reduce waste and increase recycling and composting. It was Dillon’s work on the $44-million Otter Lake Resource Management Facility in the Halifax Regional Municipality that caught international attention and led to the projects in the Caribbean, says Scott Kyle, an engineer and partner in Dillon’s Halifax office. “A lot of stuff we did here in Halifax was leading edge,” he says.

Kyle predicts that solid-waste work opportunities in the Caribbean will continue. In July a new agreement between Nova Scotia and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States was announced. It is expected to lead to better protection of the environment and enhanced trade opportunities for Nova Scotia industries.

Dillion Consulting is also currently working with the Resource Recovery Fund Board to market a trademarked software tool the board uses to manage its waste management system. In 1996 the RRFB developed the Recovery Operations Collection and Payment System (or ROCAPS 2000) to track beverage containers, tires, and paint collected and passing through the recycling process. Using a tagging system, ROCAPS has the capacity to electronically process more than one million recyclable materials and make 15,000 payments each year to vendors who collect and process recyclables.

Aside from marketing its own system, the RRFB helps establish new industries that find ways to process materials that, at one time, would have ended up in the dump. Amherst, N.S.-based Novapet Inc. is touted as one of the province’s success stories. It’s a leader in recycling plastics such as the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) used for pop bottles. The company currently collects all plastic pop bottles from the four Atlantic provinces and parts of the northeastern United States. Novapet takes the bottles and grinds them into flakes, then sells the product to manufacturers that use it to make everything from carpets to car parts. Most of the flakes leave the province, but some remain in the region and are used to make plastic wood.

Novapet sells 6.8 million kilograms of plastic flakes a year in Atlantic Canada and the United States. Surpassing that figure is difficult, says Kent MacIntyre, Novapet’s CEO. He points out that the region’s supply of plastic bottles is limited, and for additional economic growth, the company would have to look at new higher-value products. The company, which opened in 1998 and now employs 30 people, is investigating the viability of turning the plastic into pellets. Novapet sells the PET flakes for more than $0.20 a pound, but MacIntyre says he could sell the pelletized plastic product for at least twice that amount. In order to make the new product, he estimates the company would have to invest about $400,000 or more in equipment. While there would be a market for the pellets in the Atlantic region, the company’s biggest market would be in the U.S. and Central Canada. Novapet also is looking at increasing its collection of high-density plastic bottles.

The plastic from coloured bottles such as laundry-detergent containers can be used for everything from retail packages to computer parts to wash buckets, says MacIntryre. The company is now working with the RRFB on increasing the volume of high-density plastic it collects from various municipalities and private enterprises around the province.

Over at Nova Scotia’s Environment Department, Friesen also is looking ahead. He’s excited about a new recycling program for old computers, televisions, and other smaller electronics and hopes the program will be running by next summer with public consultations likely to begin this fall. Discarded electronics, or e-waste, is a growing problem. In 2003 about 4,500 tonnes of used electronics were thrown out in Nova Scotia. That meant that 155 tonnes of lead, 110 kilograms of cadmium, and 25 kilograms of mercury from this waste was discarded, creating the potential for serious environmental problems.

Friesen is getting some ideas for the program from Japan and Alberta.The western province was the first in Canada to introduce an electronics recycling program. As of October of this year, televisions, computers, and other similar equipment headed to the landfill in Alberta will be collected and recycled. An environmental fee, ranging from $5 to $45, will be put on each product to cover the costs of collecting, transporting, and recycling the electronics, as well as educational programs and research. Friesen says he could see a similar program taking off in Nova Scotia. Getting the electronics program up and running will be just one more step in maintaining the province’s leadership in solid waste management

Out of the blue

Nancy Wentzell’s Denim Art business uses leftover women’s jeans as its raw material. Nancy Wentzell has found work in rescuing clothing destined for the dump. Since 1994 the New Germany resident has been diverting thousands of kilograms of denim from landfills to run her home-based business Fresh Start Denim Art.Wentzell buys denim—mostly women’s jeans—from Textile Traders Inc. and Scotiawipers Ltd.The jeans she buys are the ones that get passed over at local Frenchy’s stores.

Last year Wentzell gave a second life to 1,360 kilograms of recycled denim. From the used material she makes everything from bags to ties to decorative placemats.Wentzell sells her designs at festivals around the Atlantic provinces and in 33 stores across Canada; Jennifer’s of Nova Scotia is one of her biggest clients. – A.L.

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