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SFU’s Food Systems Lab and NGO MASH-up to increase sustainability in Northern B.C. community
SFU’s Food Systems Lab is making a case for composting in a Northern B.C. community with the help of a Spark Grant awarded to lab director and resource and environmental management professor Tammara Soma.
The lab partnered with non-governmental organization (MASH) last June to pilot a compost program in the surrounding area of the village municipality of Hazelton, known as the Hazeltons.
In a report detailing the collaboration, Soma explains that community compost programs not only prevent harmful greenhouse gas emissions generated from food scraps in landfills; they also provide an essential component of healthy soil used by local farmers and gardeners.
The pilot, which concluded in November, allowed businesses in the Hazeltons to finally separate their food scraps to either be collected by MASH or dropped off at a hub for composting. The resulting compost will be distributed to farmers and gardeners in the community in the spring of 2025.
Belinda Li, co-director of the lab and PhD candidate in the School of Resource and Environmental Management, assisted MASH throughout the program. With a background in community garden composting, Li was able to share her expertise while conducting community-engaged research for her doctoral thesis.
During the first week, Li visited the Hazeltons and ran activities at the farmer’s market and Composting Hub to promote the program’s launch. She also met with participating businesses and helped MASH set up a workflow for managing compost material and build the first compost pile.
Over the course of the pilot, Li supported MASH with developing and testing data collection procedures to monitor operations by weighing incoming materials and documenting key variables like compost box temperature and odour. The procedures were incorporated into the site’s revised operational plan.
In September, she also worked on a baseline waste composition study in collaboration with the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine (RDKS) and the Hazelton Waste Management Facility (HWMF).
The study was the first to be conducted on the waste collected by the HWMF, and makes a case for a community composting program; a composition analysis of a sample load of waste material provided by the HWMF shows that approximately 45% of the material was compostable, suggesting that an estimated 1265 tonnes of material per year could be diverted from the landfill.
Prior to the study, MASH did not know how much compostable material is generated from the region.
In addition to helping to establish this partnership and supporting the project's initial activities, the SPARK Grant's seed funding helped with securing additional funds. Going forward, MASH and SFU's Food Systems Lab plan to expand the pilot in 2025 with continued support from Li.
