The City of Kamloops says more work will need to be done before it can add multi-family buildings that have communal garbage dumpsters and the commercial sector to the soon to be expanded curbside organic waste collection program.

Environmental Services Manager, Glen Farrow, says it is why the focus of the program that comes into effect on Aug. 21 is on the roughly 27,000 single family homes, town houses, and mobile home parks that have individual garbage and recycling carts at present.

“It’s a completely different scenario,” Farrow said, when asked about adding larger multi-family buildings to the organics program that’s been in the works for years.

“Contamination is often higher in the multi-family sector because its coming from a wide variety of residents rather than a single family dwelling home where its much easier to control the product that is going into your one individual cart.”

Speaking on NL Newsday, Farrow says while the larger multi-family buildings as well as the commercial sector brings with it its own challenges, its possible that the City will look to expand curbside organic waste collection even further in the coming years.

“[The challenges are very similar] to when we did the recycling program, understanding where additional bins would be located on those properties,” he added. “There would need to be a whole other program that would need to be developed and enhanced after a time frame of successful single family dwelling collection.”

“The focus right now is definitely on cart collection. There is a whole other set of challenges as we move forward with collecting organics at multi-family sites and commercial sites. Not to say that in the years there won’t be an opportunity to expand that.”

Farrow says the city-wide program – which was piloted in Juniper – will divert over 5,800 tonnes of organic waste from the landfill each year, while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 9,500 tonnes per year, the equivalent to removing 2,000 passenger vehicles from the road for one year.

For more pilot program highlights and further background on the entire project, go here.