News Release

Municipality of The District of Lunenburg Partners With HRM

(Wednesday, June 27/2001)-Halifax Regional Municipality and the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg have agreed to partner on compost processing on a trial basis.

The tremendous success of the green cart organics system in the HRM , and available processing capacity in the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg, has provided an opportunity for trials in sharing of waste management systems.

Beginning this week, small quantities of HRM green cart material will be shipped to the Lunenburg Regional Recycling and Composting Facility for processing into Class "A" finished compost. A 15% increase in organics composted in the HRM last year, plus an additional increase of 7% so far this year, has resulted in the need to develop contingency plans for peak periods. The Municipality of the District of Lunenburg has offered to co-operate with HRM in testing the logistical arrangements and feasibility of using available processing capacity at its compost plant to process this material.

Residents of HRM have been strongly supporting the two-year-old organics composting system, but Spring leaf and yard waste volumes continue to place a heavy demand on both composting plants in the municipality. While alternate arrangements have been made to compost this peak Spring material, residents are encouraged to Grass-cycle and Back Yard Compost grass clippings and leaves. This will reduce volumes of materials for processing by the municipality, and provide valuable home compost for lawns and gardens.

For more information on Grass-cycling , and Back Yard Composting, visit HRM's web site at www.halifax.ca/wrms/

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Jim Bauld
Coordinator, Diversion Planning, Solid Waste
(902) 490-7176