"Vancouver has the vision to be the greenest city in the world by 2020. To get there, we’ve defined 10 long-term goals, each associated with a 2020-target. After talking citizens and stakeholders, we’ve created a draft action plan to meet our proposed targets." That is how begin each short video presenting these 10 targets which are :

1.Green economy

2.Climate leadership

3.Green buildings

4.Green transportation

5.Zero waste

6.Access to nature

7.Lighter footprint

8.Clean water

9.Clean air

10.Local food

After spending two months in Vancouver, I keep writing about these targets. If you cannot wait to know more about it, here the official website of the project.

"Canadians produce more solid waste than just about any other country in the world", that’s what we can read on the website of the project. Nevertheless, Vancouver has the great ambition to become a "zero waste" city. As for each of their 10 long-term goals, they set a figured target : reduce total solid waste going to landfill or incinerator by 50% from 2008 levels, up to 2020. "In the Metro Vancouver region, we generate over 3 million tonnes of solid waste a year", and 480 000 for the city of Vancouver. "About 55% of this is recycled, composted, or recovered for energy" (so 45% is landfilled). Compared with Finland or France (unfair comparison, between a city and countries), it’s quite a good figure : in 2007, 53% of finnish waste was landfilled and 36% in France, according to the ADEME.

One of the main targets of the project is to develop treatments of biowaste, still a bit faulty. Several takeback programs of biowaste are planned for apartments, condominiums, schools, businesses... Takeback programs for paper are also a priority.

For now, collection of waste is done by private companies for multi-unit dwellings. Paper and cardboard are sorted, as well as certain kind of plastics. Paper, wood and certain kinds of electronic waste are banned from landfills and compostable organics should be in 2015.

The city also wants to develop EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility). It’s a program that makes certain businesses responsible for some of their waste. For example, inhabitants of Vancouver should be soon able to bring back their paint left to the store and it will be collected and then processed. Some electronic devices should also be concerned.

Comparison Vancouver / Helsinki / Caen

Living in Caen and after spending more than two months in Helsinki, I can now make a quick 3-step comparison between these 3 cities, about waste management...

When I first walked through streets of Vancouver, I was surprised by the high density of bins for bottles, paper and biowaste. But I didn’t find immediately a classic bin for my scrap of aluminium. Actually, special bins for paper or bottles are quite concentrated downtown. I think there were more of them in Helsinki (and not only downtown) with one compartment more for "energy waste" (certain kinds of plastics). These bins don’t exist in Caen (or at least I never saw it).

Besides, there are less materials sorted and collected in Vancouver than in Helsinki. Sorting of biowaste is just developping in Vancouver whereas it’s now something obvious in Finland (with municipal composting facilities). It is understandable that people living in appartments (opposed to those who live in houses with backyards where they can put a compost) don’t want to sort their biowaste, smells must be one of the main bareers to composting. Yet, most finnish people now do it. There is a municipal composting facility in Vancouver but collection of biowaste is not for the whole city (only for some neighbourhoods). There is no composting facility in Caen. Then, metal scraps are not collected at all in the canadian city (neither is it in Caen) but it is in Helsinki. However, I have to point out that in Vancouver as well as in Québec (and in Finland), deposit system (for certain kinds of bottles) is now something obvious, while I still don’t know one french city that developped this system. I think it’s our most important and harmful backwardness in waste management.

My analysis is quite the same for waste treatments : compared to the many different treatments used by the city of Helsinki, there are not so many in Vancouver. In Canada, landfills rarely collect methane and don’t recover waste water. Not every incinerator recovers energy. And Vancouver doesn’t have any biogas facility (neither does Caen). And, about recycling, even if I don’t have enough information for Vancouver, I don’t take many risks saying that Helsinki has better and more recycling programs. To finish with a good thing for Caen, "my" city is at least better than Vancouver for one thing, thanks to EU : since 2007, in EU, collect of waste water and methane in landfills is obligatory.

See you soon, Be green, Ben