Due to a successful, year-long pilot project between King County Solid Waste and island nonprofit Zero Waste Vashon, the collection of compostable waste at Vashon’s transfer station is a permanent feature.
According to a statement from King County’s Solid Waste Division, islanders in the past year — from October 2015 to September 2016 — brought 584 tons of compostable materials (yard and food waste separated from garbage) to the transfer station. Gib Dammann, president of Zero Waste Vashon (ZWV), said the figure is triple what the county was expecting.
“When King County Solid Waste agreed to do the pilot, they said they expected half a ton a day as average (180 tons in one year),” he said last week. “King County is extremely pleased and that is why they are taking it out of pilot status and making it a permanent program.”
He went on to say that the nearly 590 tons is a “very good start … especially when we start to look at potential.” He said ZWV has plans to further incentivize composting beyond the current cheaper disposal rates. Currently, fees charged for yard and food waste are lower than garbage fees. Customers are charged a minimum fee of $12, which covers up to 320 pounds. For heavier loads, customers are charged a $75 per ton fee.
The project is the first step in ZWV’s goal to ultimately reuse island waste by keeping the compost on-island. Currently, the waste is being shipped off-island to be composted at a plant in Maple Valley, but ZWV has plans to create an on-island composting facility that can provide island farmers and gardeners with local product. The plant would cut down on transportation costs incurred by shipping waste off the island and shipping compost back on.
“We’re shipping out our resources; the benefits of our soil and plants are going to someone else,” Dammann said. “It makes sense to keep resources we have and provide jobs. It’s something called environmental economics.”
He said the organization’s goal for 2017 is to try and determine the possibility of an on-island, community compost facility for yard waste.
“We feel like the transfer station and other numbers defend a feasibility and say, ‘We’ve got enough potential green waste to justify composting as a community,’ and we feel like that’s a big first step,” he said.
In the meantime, bioenergy company Impact Bioenergy received a grant from King County Solid Waste Division in August 2016 and is studying alternatives to transporting Vashon yard and food waste off-island. King County Solid Waste Division is also conducting a county-wide anaerobic digestion feasibility study.
