Expanded composting, clear garbage bags key to Sudbury strategy to extend life of landfills

The landfill in Sudbury is 60 per cent full, while the one in Azilda is 62 per cent full and the Hanmer site is 74 per cent full. (File)

Greater Sudbury's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and extend the life of the city's dumps largely depends on expanding its composting programs and having residents use clear garbage bags.

Combined, the city hopes the moves will significantly reduce the amount of compostable waste that ends up in city landfills, where they not only take up space, but produce methane gas.

The landfill in Sudbury is 60 per cent full, while the one in Azilda is 62 per cent full and the Hanmer site is 74 per cent full, according to a presentation headed to city council Tuesday evening.

Replacing the Sudbury landfill is estimated to cost $100 million and take 10-13 years, the report said. Hanmer and Azilda landfills would be about $50 million each.

Delaying the need to replace the landfill is the key goal of the waste management strategy, and key to the plan is diverting more organic waste to composting and away from the dump.

"Over the last 10 years, the amount of residential waste that has been diverted from landfill has been relatively stagnant averaging at 44 per cent," the report said.

The diversion rate jumped to 47 per cent in 2021 when roadside garbage collection was reduced to two bags every two weeks.

In 2023, the city managed 125,000 tonnes of waste, including garbage, recycled items and organic waste collected through the green cart program.

However, it estimates that between 30 and 50 per cent of residential garbage could have been put in green carts.

The strategy recommends a series of moves to increase diversion of garbage, but the two biggest are extending composting to apartment buildings and the non-residential sector in the city and requiring residents to use clear plastic bags for their garbage.

"The clear garbage bag program (for residential and non-residential customers) and the implementation and expansion of the green cart program (to apartment and condominium buildings and to the non-residential sector) are expected to achieve the highest impacts," the report said.

The cost of expanding the green cart program to multi-unit buildings and the non-residential sector is a one-time expenditure of $180,000 over 12-18 months, as well as increased annual operating costs of $300,000.

"Each individual resident is estimated to reduce the amount of garbage they create by 16 per cent," the report said.

"Collectively, the total amount of residential and non-residential waste landfilled is estimated to be reduced by 22 per cent."

• Download the CTV News app now
• Get local breaking news alerts
• Daily newsletter with the top local stories emailed to your inbox

And increasing the use of the green cart program would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Sudbury by 12 per cent.

Also under consideration is tightening rules to ensure that people from out of town don’t come to city landfills to dump their garbage.

However, requiring residents and commercial vehicles to prove their identity or be forced to leave the line would slow things down considerably.

"Will increase landfill access wait times and could cause traffic congestion on public access roads without further investment in traffic management," the report said.

"Anticipated to have a low impact on reducing the total waste landfilled and decreasing greenhouse gases."

Read the full report here. It will be discussed at tonight's city council meeting beginning at 6 p.m.