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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Spence-area restaurants compost waste
Community gardens benefit
Five days a week, a staffer from the Spence Neighbourhood Association hops on a bike and visits the Ellice Cafe & Theatre, the Soma Cafe and the Black Sheep Diner.
The restaurants save up their compostable fruit and vegetable scraps, which are taken by bicycle to compost bins at two community gardens on Langside Street and Furby Street. "It's sort of an innovative way of seeing what the possibilities are for restaurants to use their organics for good," said Spence Neighbourhood Association composting coordinator Kate Dykman, who also does compost pickup for the group.
The program kicked off in late May with funding from Manitoba Conservation, and staff collect an estimated 110 kilograms of compostable waste every week.
The group also conducted waste audits at each of the three restaurants, and found out between 25 and 50 per cent of all the waste they created could be composted, rather than going to the dump.
Ellice Cafe & Theatre manager Belinda Squance said things have gone off without a hitch since the program began.
"I had no idea that a simple change like that could reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill from here," she said.
By the end of summer, the neighbourhood association hopes to have a clear idea of how much waste a community garden compost bin can handle, and how fast the bin will fill up. This fall they plan to expand the project to more restaurants, with Homer's on Ellice Avenue already on board.
"We're hoping to be able to go to a restaurant and show them the financial savings they can have if they did local composting, and then perhaps have a bit of a business plan in place for future social enterprise," Dykman said.
The group plans to stick with the Spence neighbourhood, and hopes to keep up with compost collection by bicycle.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 26, 2008 $sourceSection$sourcePage
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