It’s a wet and windy morning in Winnipeg and Garrett LeBlanc’s main concern is dodging the foul-smelling juice spraying out from the dozens of green bins he’ll tip during the day.
He zips his raincoat up high and secures a 290-litre bin to the hydraulic arm on the side of his ride for the day — a compact garbage-collection truck — then pushes a button to start the lift. He keeps his eyes trained on the slow rise of the bin, then on the green bags of discarded watermelon rinds, meat scraps and kitchen leftovers that tumble into the bed of the truck.
The breeze hooks a thin trail of “rot splatter” and sends it whizzing toward LeBlanc. He dodges. He gives the bin a shake at the peak of the lift, a quick up-down motion with the buttons, before lowering it back to the pavement.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Garrett LeBlanc is a compost courier with Compost Winnipeg. Kids think of him as a bit of “a superhero,” he says, and retirees often stop him to ask questions about the unfamiliar green bins.
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MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Garrett LeBlanc is a compost courier with Compost Winnipeg. Kids think of him as a bit of “a superhero,” he says, and retirees often stop him to ask questions about the unfamiliar green bins.
LeBlanc then lines the bin with a new, compostable bag before wheeling the green tub back into place among this particular condominium’s other garbage and recycling bins.
It’s a process he’ll repeat dozens of times over the course of the day on his collection route for the social enterprise Compost Winnipeg.
“There’s parts of the job that aren’t glamorous and not for everyone,” he says, back in the cab of the truck. “But composting, I’ve always done that at home, and being able to tangibly pick up and see everything that’s being diverted from the dump feels pretty meaningful.”
Brady Road landfill: Manitoba’s second-largest source of greenhouse-gas emissions
Compost Winnipeg came into being in 2016, when the Green Action Centre — a Manitoba non-profit focused on environmental education and green-living programs — was looking for a way to generate a little extra revenue. The City of Winnipeg had just shot down a compost-collection service of its own, and the Green Action Centre saw an opportunity to bring in some new funds while filling a gap in city services.
HOW TO COMPOST
If the city doesn’t pick up your compostable goods, there are still ways to churn out good compost from home.
Here’s how it works: when “green” ingredients, such as like food scraps, are mixed with “brown” ingredients, such as yard waste and paper, micro-organisms in the soil eat away at the organics. As they eat, they break down the organic matter into its simplest parts and release nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, among other nutrients.
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If the city doesn’t pick up your compostable goods, there are still ways to churn out good compost from home.
Here’s how it works: when “green” ingredients, such as like food scraps, are mixed with “brown” ingredients, such as yard waste and paper, micro-organisms in the soil eat away at the organics. As they eat, they break down the organic matter into its simplest parts and release nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, among other nutrients. Turning the compost piles provides fresh oxygen, allowing the micro-organisms to release carbon dioxide and heat — instead of methane. Within a couple months, organic waste is transformed into a soil-like substance called humus, which can be used as fertilizer for agriculture, as a nutrient-dense food for plants, or to add nutrients back into existing soil. Backyard composting is simple, and can be done in a few easy steps.
First, choose a composter that fits your yard space and needs. These can be picked up at local garden stores or made at home with a few wood pallets, and should be placed in a location with good sun exposure and drainage.
Once you have a bin, you’ll need a mix of green and brown matter.
Green matter refers to nitrogen-rich, “wet” materials including fruit and vegetable leftovers, eggshells, coffee grounds and tea bags. It also includes grass and fresh yard waste.
AVOID: fish, meat, bones, dairy, nuts and fatty or oily leftovers.
Brown matter refers to carbon-rich, “dry” materials, including used napkins, paper towels, newspaper, dry leaves, wood chips and other yard debris. It can also include certified compostable packaging.
AVOID: Flowering weeds, diseased plants and animal waste. Look out for packaging that claims to be “biodegradable,” but not compostable. Biodegradable products have no specific time frame to break down, and most will only serve to contaminate your compost pile.
Next, it’s time to build a compost pile. Start with a thick, coarse layer of brown materials (branches, straw and bark work well) for proper aeration and drainage. Then add a layer of greens. Generally, composting pros recommend the brown layers should be two to three times as thick as the green layers. A layer of brown material should be added to the top of the pile to keep wet food buried.
Every two to three weeks, aerate the pile by stirring it with a shovel or pitchfork to ensure micro-organisms have enough air to thrive. The pile should be damp, but not sopping wet — about the moisture level of a wrung-out sponge. If you notice your pile getting too dry, add some green materials or give it a light watering. Compost also shouldn’t smell: a healthy, active pile has the odour of damp earth. If it starts to stink, try stirring the pile or adding more brown materials.
Within a couple of months, the material at the bottom of the compost will start to transform into a damp, soil-like substance. That’s humus, and it can be used as plant and garden fertilizer, as lawn topping or to augment the soil around trees and shrubs.
Close
Coun. Brian Mayes, chair of the city’s waste and water standing committee, remembers the civic administration first looking into organics collection in 2011. Back then, Winnipeg was pushing to divert 50 per cent or more of its solid waste from the landfill by 2020, and council proposed an organic-waste pilot program that would start in 2014 and be ready for full-scale expansion by 2017.
The program never took off. Mayor Brian Bowman, who was elected in fall 2014, couldn’t risk compromising his campaign promise of a 2.3 per cent property-tax hike by running a costly new service, and residents who were already composting in their backyards began writing to their councillors to oppose an increase in their tax bills. Compost was dead in the water.
“I had a woman at a seniors home say, ‘I started composting during the war,’ basically, ‘I’m a good guy, I’ve been doing this my whole life, why would you charge people like me,’” recalls Mayes (St. Vital).
“‘To make this system work,’ is the awkward answer. I think it is a program that has benefits for everybody; it’ll help with our diversion rate, and I think it’s worth doing.”
“‘To make this system work,’ is the awkward answer. I think it is a program that has benefits for everybody; it’ll help with our diversion rate, and I think it’s worth doing.” – Coun. Brian Mayes
Winnipeg’s waste diversion rate has hovered at about 33 per cent for almost a decade.
But with organics making up between 40 and 60 per cent of landfill waste, the city is starting to take a second look at compost collection.
In 2020, Mayes helped Winnipeg launch a two-year pilot program to test the feasibility of a citywide collection program. Approximately 4,000 residents from five neighbourhoods were outfitted with a green collection bin, a kitchen compost tub and a supply of compostable bags — free of charge — that October.
The food waste collected from those homes is processed with regular seasonal yard waste (collected on a bi-weekly basis from all Winnipeg residences between April and November, totalling about 30 million kilos a year) at Brady Road.
So far, the pilot has been a sweeping success. After a month of weekly collection, the city surveyed participants and found 99 per cent of respondents were keen to see the program expanded across the city.
“I think it’s time now, people are more interested,” says Mayes. “In 2011, almost no one raised this at the door; now people say we’re way behind on this issue.”
Meet your local composting courier
LeBlanc is one of a half-dozen Compost Winnipeg couriers. Every morning, from Monday to Thursday, he packs a bag with weather-appropriate clothes and enough food to last a long day on the road. This particular morning he’s in charge of the early shift. He biked to work before dawn, inspected the truck and hit the road before 6 a.m. to empty a bevy of bins filled up by the city’s hospitals.
The morning route is primarily commercial clients — the hospitals, Canada Goose, Starbucks and IKEA, among others — but his afternoons vary with stops at condos, apartment blocks, businesses and residential properties.
Julia-Simone Rutgers
Reporter
Julia-Simone Rutgers is a climate reporter with a focus on environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a three-year partnership between the Winnipeg Free Press and The Narwhal, funded by the Winnipeg Foundation.
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