Saskatoon's green cart program still a go despite loss of processing site

Starting Monday, Saskatoon residents can place their organic waste into city-provided green bins, where it will be hauled away to be processed into compost.

But a last-minute permit denial means the company contracted to process that waste can't do it in the place it had intended to.

In 2020 the City of Saskatoon contracted Green Prairie Environmental (GPE) to process the city's organic waste into compost starting in the spring of 2023.

GPE owns a landfill in the RM of Corman Park and planned to locate the composting site adjacent to that. But on Monday, the RM of Corman Park voted 8-1 against giving GPE a discretionary use permit to operate the composting facility.

That leaves GPE without a site to process compost, which will start getting collected by the City of Saskatoon next week.

"I wouldn't call it a surprise, but it wasn't something we were hoping for obviously," said Brendan Lemke, director of water and waste operations with the City of Saskatoon.

"Nothing's finalized right now and we're working to make those final logistics around that, but there are some options to take to different facilities."

He noted that the city's multi-year contract with GPE requires the company to cover any additional costs associated with the bid to process waste. The contract also stipulated GPE must have a contingency plan.

Lemke said that a contingency plan was still being finalized.

GPE declined to comment.

Lemke said there are some processing sites for organic waste around Saskatoon, but it was unclear if any of them had enough capacity to handle the waste for an entire city.

Concerns lack of site will deter people from program

Rachel Mackenzie started collecting her organic waste about a week ago, excited that Saskatoon would soon start its green bin program. 

She said the lack of a proper composting facility is concerning and could dissuade people from collecting organic waste.

"I'm concerned about why they've launched a program with the assumption that our organics that we put in our green bins aren't going to end up in the landfill when there's not actually a set place for them to go," Mackenzie said.

"The rollout just needs to be better than this."

Duncan McKercher, a developer and resident of Crossmount, a hamlet near the proposed composting facility site, said he's in favour of composting, but it didn't make sense to place the facility so close to a residential area.

"It should either be in an industrial area or should be located somewhere in the perimeter Saskatoon area, where it has the least amount of effect on the least amount of people," McKercher said.

He said area residents were concerned about the extra traffic on the roads from trucks hauling compost to the facility.

McKercher said there were also concerns about odours.

He added that GPE had about three years to get the proper permits in place and failed to do so.

"They don't have their permits in place, they don't have their entitlements in place, they don't have proper infrastructure and they don't have proper facilities," McKercher said.

"And yet they're supposed to be accepting all this stuff next week."