Ottawa Sun

The vile smell emitted from Orgaworld’s London compost processing plant is, according to a nearby resident, akin to having ten garbage trucks full of fermenting waste parked on your front lawn.

The foul odour has invaded the nostrils of London, Ont., residents living within a roughly two-kilometre radius of the plant since it opened in 2007.

The stench is directly attributable to the facility accepting plastics, pet waste and diapers, claims resident John Pieterson, who also sits on the community liaison committee that was struck by Orgaworld to deal with the public smell complaints.

The company is currently seeking an amendment to its certificate of approval from an environmental tribunal allowing it to process these very materials at its Ottawa plant, which currently accepts only organic materials.

The company has said it has learned from its technical mistakes in London and that the problems have been rectified in Ottawa.

“I say to the people of Ottawa do not let plastics enter that thing because as soon as you have plastics you are getting contaminated, fermented garbage,” said Pieterson.

The smell has affected property values in the vicinity of the plant, forced home sellers to disclose the smell to potential buyers, and, more importantly for Pieterson, eroded residents’ quality of life.

Although the provincial environment ministry handles public complaints about the plant’s smell, Jay Stanford, London’s director of environmental programs and solid waste, said the facility should not have been allowed to cause the smell problem for residents for this long.

“That is unfortunate because it is a bit of a black eye for composting across Ontario,” he said.

The irony is that London itself doesn’t have a green bin program and the majority of the materials causing the problem are trucked in from Toronto and surrounding area.

York Region’s decision to include diapers, sanitary products and pet waste in its green bin program since its inception in 2007 is being credited for its high public participation rate of up to 95%, said Laura McDowell, York Region director of environmental promotion and protection. It gives residents the flexibility they crave in order to participate.

Recently, the municipality decided to expand their program to include compostable plastic bags.

Ottawa’s Orgaworld plant differs from the London facility in that it doesn’t accept materials from other municipalities.

An amendment to the certificate of approval, however, would open the door to truckloads of organic waste from other communities, including plastics, diapers and pet waste, noted Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans.

laura.czekaj@sunmedia.ca