The City of Richmond will begin delivering all of its organics to the Enviro Smart processing facility in Delta beginning Feb. 1, 2018.
This means that as of next month, Richmond will no longer be delivering any organics to Harvest Power, the composting facility in east Richmond that generated more than 1,000 complaints last year regarding its odour.
“We received a number of bids; through evaluations, we determined that Enviro-Smart provides the best value for the city in terms of financial and other considerations,” said Ted Townsend, spokesperson of the City of Richmond.
The move will allow the city to continue to grow its organics program and achieve its goal of diverting 80 per cent of the residential waste stream from the landfill by 2020, he added.
About 10 per cent of all organic material processed by Harvest Power is delivered by the City of Richmond.
Since early 2017, the city has been delivering organics from multi-family homes to Enviro-Smart. It will now deliver organics from single family homes to the facility as well.
“We will no longer be sending our organics to Harvest Power, but we want to point out that, we are still concerned about the odours that come from the facility,” said Townsend.
“We will continue to work with the company and Metro Vancouver to insure that the issue gets addressed…We want the odours to stop.”
Harvest Power, meanwhile, said it is disappointed with the city’s decision.
“Obviously, we are disappointed. They’ve been a valued customer of ours for a number of years and we will certainly miss the business,” said Stephen Bruyneel, spokesperson of Harvest Power.
“But, at the same time, we are continuing our focus on efforts to reduce odour concerns, and we will continue to be there for other customers and clients to meet their organics composting goals.”
Metro Vancouver has issued stricter rules regarding odours emanating from Harvest Power, starting Jan. 1, 2018.
It has ordered Harvest Power to replace one of its two on-site aerated static piles by Feb. 1, 2018. No new material will be allowed placed on the existing pile after that date.
Harvest Power hasn't submitted any replacement plans to Metro Vancouver and "there is no way they can replace it in time," Ray Robb, Metro Vancouver’s district director, told the Richmond News last week.
Bruyneel responded that the company is not planning to use that second pile in the future, and it’s been reducing volumes and lowering the height of that pile, so it “will be able to meet the terms in the permit.”
