Central Okanagan residents want curbside food waste collection

A simple system for collecting food waste in yard waste bins in the Central Okanagan looks feasible and popular.

The regional district is going to spend a $450,000 grant looking into the costs and logistics of making it happen.

A survey was sent to 1,800 randomly selected homes last November.

The 30% who responded showed “support for a curbside food waste collection program, with the largest concerns being around service cost, wildlife conflicts and biweekly collection of waste,” said a report going to the Regional District of Central Okanagan board meeting, Thursday, Feb. 22.

It suggested food waste simply be placed in the existing yard waste containers and those be picked up weekly instead of every two weeks.

Garbage collection would shift to every two weeks from weekly.

Support for the idea was strongest in Kelowna at 76% and weakest in Peachland at 67%. The two rural areas in the regional district did not provide enough responses to be statistically significant.

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One of the biggest concerns was cost with 37% of respondents saying they did not want to pay more for the service.

People who didn’t like the idea of garbage collection going to every other week did agree they could manage if they had cart upgrades or could use a tag-a-bag system if they had extra garbage.

An online survey showed 57% of respondents in favour of the program with 25% concerned about wildlife and rodents getting into the waste.

The Green Communities Fund grant money will be used to hire a consultant to design the system and look into things like finding places to process the food waste, where to put transfer stations and costs.

The report does not say when the collection program might start.

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