How an Organic-Only Condo Garbage Chute can Reduce Landfill Waste

A high-rise condo building in Etobicoke recently added an organic-only garage chute, adopting a waste reduction method that some experts are predicting could keep significant amounts of household waste from ending up in Canadian landfills.

 The 22-storey condo building that we are discussing in this article is a high-rise at 812 Burnhamthorpe Road. After converting one of its chutes into organics-only, many residents praised the efforts of reducing the waste outputted by buildings such as these every year.

 By providing residents with an organics-only chute, it marks an easy way to get rid of the garbage that is normally inputted with all the other waste thrown out. If you can make it more convenient, most will use it.

 The City of Toronto has recognized the success of buildings like 812 Burnhamthorpe Road at organics-only garbage developments. There is admittedly more that can be done to get the whole city on the same kick. For example, only 65 percent of single family homes in the GTA recycle their waste. When it comes to Torontonians living in apartments, condos, and co-ops, that number is even lower at 27 percent. The argument made here is that by creating more organics-only chutes, potentially that percentage can be raised significantly among condo dwellers.

 The primary barrier to implementation of an organics-only system is that many of these multi-residential structures are older and only built for a single garbage chute.

 New buildings have already been required to have multiple chutes and though that system is working well for them, older buildings don’t necessarily have a means to come up with the cost to convert.

 Though one can praise the newer buildings as well, yes they are mandated to have multiple shoots however if they have private garbage collection, they have no obligation to sort their garbage, recycling, and organics.

 Needless to say, there is a lot of room for improvement on this point as waste from landfill sites are one of the largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

 The City and province are both seeking to identify the most appropriate response to this issue. Toronto is currently considering a bylaw that would mandate all residential buildings to collect organics, irrelevant of what their waste collection setup is. Meanwhile, the province of Ontario is debating the merits of banning organics altogether from landfills.

 The City of Toronto is seeking to identify the most successful recycling practice that can be replicated across the region. Beginning in 2018, Toronto is set to run a series of experiments to test practices in several buildings, each with different demographics. One of these experiments is expected to be organics-only garbage chutes.

 Imagine the positivity that a switch to an organics-only garbage chute would have across the City. High-rise buildings spend up to $4,000 per month on garbage collection. By reducing garbage and increasing recycling or composting, that reduces these fees. This is in thanks to Toronto’s commitment to keeping the pick-up of recycling and organics free.

 The year to come is going to be a unique time for Toronto as it seeks to develop building-specific solutions to the growing organic waste taking up space in its landfills.