Waste Management tackles odour

By Miriam Ostermann, Associate Editor

Following a putrid odour plaguing Strathmore for months, Waste Management recently diverted roughly 90 per cent of their inbound feedstock and is working on decreasing more of its compost piles to reduce the smell.
For months, residents dealt with a strong odour that quickly earned the name “Wheezy Wednesday.”
In turn, Waste Management acquired additional equipment this year, purchased larger blower equipment to upgrade the air systems, extended operating hours at the compost facility and diverted feedstock that was thought to have caused a concern for their processing abilities.
Nearly 90 per cent of the feedstock has been removed and efforts to reduce further material will take place over the next three to six weeks.
“We actually made two decisions; first was to redirect about one specific feedstock, or one specific material; and the second decision which was to divert practically all of the inbound tons aside from the Town of Strathmore,” said Chris LaMaistre, development manager with Waste Management. “It’s really just to reduce the inbound material while the operations team works on moving more of the finished material offsite and create a little more elbow room onsite.”
Waste Management provided a curbside black cart program in January, a curbside green cart program in June and an organic processing facility recycling drop-off centre, as well as a heavy item garbage pickup and a subscription recycling curbside pickup.
Waste Management, an environmental service provider in North America, processes 3.8 million tons of source-separated organic material annually at over 40 composting facilities that managed 10.76 million tons of recycling in 2017.
According to Cody Huxted, operations manager with Waste Management, materials from outside of Strathmore, such as Wheatland County, Chestermere and Calgary, have contributed to the volume of the piles and the odour.
Waste Management said they are currently only taking items from the Town of Strathmore.
“There were some miscalculations in that regards and that’s being looked at and rectified and I have some faith in what (Waste Management) is doing, but I want to emphasize one thing: that our community wants to be famous and popular for a whole bunch of things, but that odour is not one of them,” said Strathmore town Councillor Bob Sobol.
“We can’t allow that to continue on… we’re in the throes of trying to advertise our community as a place where everybody can enjoy life and that’s not doing it. I’m inundated with angry people.”
Since its launch in June to October, Waste Management collected 473 tons of organics through its green cart program.
Since January, the company collected 1,914 tons of residual items with its curbside black cart program.
While some town councillors were angry with the odour, other councillors were glad the smell is being dealt with.
“I’m really happy with how much waste we’ve diverted from the landfills; that’s a very positive step and in a short of amount of time,” said Councillor Melanie Corbiell.
Yet administration and councillors received many complaints and letters from residents.
“I find it concerning that we entered into this compost arrangement without knowing the capacity… but as Councillor Sobol mentioned, it has caused issues for this council, but more importantly it has seriously compromised quality of life for our people to the point that when you live in the south side of the community, you’re referring to it as Wheezy Wednesdays because that’s when it’s the worst,” said Councillor Denise Peterson. “The letters that we’ve received… people’s concerns have been well taken by the council and we have no appetite left for this.”
Councillor Lorraine Bauer encouraged Waste Management to return to council if the odour issues aren’t resolved in the near future.