Stop making compost: a new plan for P.E.I.'s organic waste

The garbage collected in the green bins along P.E.I.'s roadsides could be put to better use than creating compost, according to the Island's draft energy policy.

The strategy recommends using the Island's organic waste to create biogas rather than compost.

Dunsky Energy Consulting, which is helping to draft the strategy, believes enough biofuel could be created to run Island Waste Management's 41 garbage trucks for the year.

"P.E.I.'s greatest percentage of emissions comes from transportation, and even more significantly than that is that it's the only sector in which the emissions are growing," said senior consultant Julie-Ann Vincent.

Enough to run the garbage trucks

Vincent said it would be a small project, but one that would reduce P.E.I.'s transportation emissions.

Running the garbage trucks with biogas would save 1.4 million litres of diesel oil a year, and reduce P.E.I.'s greenhouse gas emissions by 900 metric tonnes. That's would be like taking almost 200 passenger vehicles off the road fora year.

The strategy also wants to see more buildings on the Island heated with wood chips.

It suggests the province should heat an additional 40 public buildings with wood chips. Currently 22 buildings get their heat from wood.

Construction waste also targeted

Dunsky's research has shown P.E.I. has enough wood to power another 40 buildings sustainably. Dunsky is also suggesting wood from construction sites be used to create wood chips for biomass, rather than landfilling this lumber.

We need to move to renewable sources of heat.- Julie-Ann Vincent

The strategy acknowledges it's costing the province more to heat the 22 buildings it's already heating this way versus oil, but Vincent the savings will come as the cost of oil rises.

"Right now oil is incredibly cheap relative to where it used to be and biomass is an area that is subject to fluctuations in the market," she said.

"We are expecting oil prices to rise in the future. And oil is a non-renewable, non-sustainable resource,and it's a fossil fuel, and we think that we need to move to renewable sources of heat."

Islanders have until Friday to submit comments on the plan.

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