Nelson contemplates delivering pre-treated organics FoodCyclers city-wide

Pilot could go city-wide

Photo: City of Nelson agenda screenshot

Improvements will also need to be made to the central drop-off system for pre-treated food waste.

The pre-treated organics pilot program is looking to launch into a city-wide campaign as the City of Nelson contemplates unleashing the technology of FoodCyclers to every Nelson household.

During a Feb. 6 budget meeting city staff proposed a recommendation to implement a city-wide pre-treated organics program for a six-year period (followed by a re-assessment). That would involve the purchase of 1,900 additional FoodCycler appliances for the roll-out, equipping all eligible Nelson households.

City manager Kevin Cormack said the city had made a commitment to the community that it would do an organics diversion program.

“And only certain people have food cyclers, but everyone's paying for them,” he said. “So that's part of the reason why we're recommending going ahead, just fulfilling that commitment and balancing that bit of unfairness right now, that some have the program and some don’t and everyone's paying for it.”

The City of Nelson’s pre-treated organics program pilot launched in 2023. Following a program evaluation in 2024, Nelson city council approved an extension of the pilot.

Two years later, the current inventory of 2,400 FoodCyclers was fully distributed — with a resident education campaign — and a comparison was made of the environmental, financial, operational and service-level program outcomes between the pre-treated organics program and a traditional green cart collection.

The evaluation found “strong participant engagement with the program,” and diversion rates reported in resident surveys and assessed through direct measurement show a "high level of diversion being achieved in the community.”

If a full-scale pre-treated organics program is implemented, with regulatory and educational support, households would be expected to divert approximately 155 kilograms of food waste per year on average. Waste audits show that there is still food waste in the curbside waste stream, and more diversion is achievable.

The city-wide program would include the purchase of 1,900 additional FoodCycler appliances, with direct delivery to residents by Food Cycle Science in 2026, an extended warranty for the current inventory of appliances, and the continuation of the local FoodCycler repair program.

Improvements will also be made to the central drop-off system for pre-treated food waste.

It is expected that annual costs for the pre-treated organics program would be funded through the resource recovery reserve which is supported by the annual resource recovery fees.

However, annual fees would require an increase of $25 in 2027 to $200 to cover inflationary costs and an increase by an additional $40 to $240 by 2031 to cover inflationary costs and growth over the following five years.