The future is uncertain for Altona’s curbside compost collection service.
Green Opportunities Inc. (GO), the company that processes the town’s compostable materials, recently requested a large rate increase. However, the Altona town council denied this request due to the long-term cost implications for the community.
Altona CAO Dan Gagne explained that when the Town of Altona entered into an agreement with Penner Waste Inc. in 2020 for solid waste and compost collection, the contract included the delivery of compost to a licensed facility for proper processing.
Initially, Penner Waste Inc. handled both collection and processing at its licensed facility in Winkler, with a starting rate of $40 per metric tonne in 2021, subject to annual increases based on the Manitoba-adjusted CPI. This agreement is valid until Dec. 31, 2025.
Gagne noted that when the agreement was signed, Altona was introducing kitchen organic waste into its curbside compost collection service. Diverting kitchen organic waste from the Altona Rhineland Waste Disposal Site to a licensed facility was a priority for the council.
Previously, the town processed compostable waste at its own facility, which was only licensed for yard waste.
Establishing a licensed facility would require significant investment in equipment and labour. If the town decided to stop accepting kitchen organic waste and only accept yard waste, the existing compost drop-off site would need expansion, but this would be less costly than setting up a licensed facility. Additionally, any changes to the compost site would require consultation with the Municipality of Rhineland, as it is a shared facility.
In early 2023, Penner Waste Inc. sold its solid waste hauling and container services divisions, along with its name, to MWM Environmental Ltd. The licensed compost facility continued operations under the name GO, which agreed to honour the existing terms for processing Altona’s compostable materials.
On July 17 of this year, GO representatives met with Gagne to discuss the business’s viability at current processing rates. They indicated that significant rate increases, or higher volumes of incoming compostable materials, would be necessary to sustain operations. GO’s primary revenue comes from compost processing, with minimal income from finished compost sales.
Currently, the processing rate is $46.03 per metric tonne. On August 13, GO informed Gagne of a rate increase to $90 per tonne from September 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024, followed by a further increase to $135 per tonne starting January 1, 2025. The average amount of compost processed by GO in the last four months of the past three years has been 155 metric tonnes. If the proposed rate increases are approved, the estimated cost increase for 2024 would be $6,815.35 and $37,011.52 for 2025.
Ultimately, council denied the rate request and is currently awaiting a response from GO.
“The rate is almost doubling this year, so that is significant. This year, we’ve budgeted in a way that we could absorb it. But next year, when the rate really starts to climb, we would notice it in our budget,” Gagne said. “The indication I got was that this is just the beginning. It signalled to us that moving forward, we’d likely have to look at taxpayer-funded increases at some point down the line. It’s a matter of principle that we negotiated a five-year agreement, and we want to keep it that way.”
Recently, the City of Morden was informed by its compost processor, Enviroclean Landfill Solutions Ltd., that it would cease operations, leaving GO as the only licensed compost facility in the Pembina Valley. There is a possibility that the Solid Waste Area Management Project (SWAMP) could accept compostable materials for processing, but currently compostable waste is only accepted as general waste.
Instead of agreeing to the new fees, the town has decided to research options such as discontinuing kitchen organics within the curbside collection program, expanding the existing compost processing facility for yard waste only, establishing a licensed compost processing facility for all compostable materials, or finding an alternative licensed compost processing facility.
“We’re looking at ways to preserve what we have,
Gagne said. “We’re hoping there is another alternative that we can send our compost waste somewhere else. For the time being, maybe it doesn’t get processed immediately, but they may get stockpiled a while until they get set up to process it. So, we’re holding out hope for that. The other alternative is at home options, such as composters that are subsidized, or having in-home composters. But that doesn’t solve our yard waste issue. Our current site would need to be expanded.”
For now, there will be no changes to the compost collection service.
“Right now, MWM will continue picking it up. Their trucks will still go there. We’re hoping GO will come back with a more reasonable offer, or a different solution.”
