Minor user disruptions at the Sechelt landfill are expected throughout March, but the inconveniences are necessary to create space that will add four years to that amenity’s useful life, according to a Feb. 24 Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) press release.
Starting March 1, landfill crews will not be accepting ammonia and propane fridges, and the Ocean Plastics Depot will be temporarily closed.
What’s being done?
The project will see the relocation of the existing contact water pond, with that space then being used as a waste disposal area. Most of the currently scheduled work is to finish by March 31. The new contact water pond the SCRD is building is to have better filtration and larger capacity to prevent overflowing during major storm events.
The budget for the pond relocation approved in 2024 was $520,000 according to the 2025 Round 1 budget submission that was before the board late last November. In that, staff forecast the project would be completed by the final quarter of this year.
“By extending the life of the landfill, we are able to reduce long-term costs associated with exporting waste and gain more time to determine a long-term disposal option for the Coast,” regional district manager of solid waste services Marc Sole stated in the release.
Long-term solid waste decisions are to be influenced by a design phase report on vertical landfill expansion, which could again extend the current site’s lifespan. That is scheduled to be before elected officials in mid-2025, according to that same budget report.
More data will also come in with the region’s solid waste management plan update, which is slated for completion by the end of the year.
2024 landfill volumes
Accepted last year at the landfill was 12,635 tonnes of waste, according to the 2024 Q4 operations statistics presented at the Feb. 13 committee of the whole meeting. That was the result of 838 tonnes coming in from the Pender Harbour waste transfer station and 11,797 brought to the site from curbside collection in areas other than Pender Harbour or delivered to the site by individuals.
Despite population growth in all areas of the Coast over the past two years, the trash contribution from the transfer station was down from 869 tonnes in 2023, and 1,022 the year before. The tonnage delivered to the station from other contributors in 2024 was higher than the total for 2023 (10,922) and 2022 (11,217).
Coast recycling on the increase
Fourth quarter 2024 SCRD operations statistics showed green waste recycling on the Coast with the highest positive upswing of the products recycled between 2023 and 2024. That tonnage went from 4,562 in 2023 to 5,374 last year, almost an 18 per cent increase.
A note that accompanied those numbers explained “the increase in green waste for 2024 is due in part to an increase in green waste dropped off at the South Coast Green Waste Henry Road facility after changes were made to allow small businesses access to the previously resident only site.”
Recycling of residential curbside food waste collection in areas that have that service (Area A excluded) went up in 2024 for a third year in a row. 2024’s tonnage was 620, compared to 609 last year and 581 in 2022.
Depot recycling (such things as bottles, cans, plastics and packaging) for Pender, Sechelt and Gibsons combined increased in 2024, with 1,583 tonnes deposited in last year over 1,513 that was delivered to the depots in 2023.
“In 2022, the SCRD studied the composition of waste going into the landfill and found that 46 per cent of the waste taken to the landfill is either recyclable or compostable. To make the most of the space we have left we need community members to prioritize ways to reduce, reuse and repair before they recycle or throw away what they no longer need,” Sole stated in the release.
