It’s like they took a dozen cars off the road for a whole year.

That’s the result of a pilot project recycling food waste in St. Clair Township.
In May 2022, families were offered a low-cost Foodcycler – a unit which sat on the kitchen counter and turned food scraps into dry, odorless byproduct that doesn’t attract pests.

The township agreed to subsidize the cost by paying $100 for each unit purchased.

Jason Hanlon of the Foodcycler program told St. Clair councillors Monday 210 homes diverted 44.7 metric tons of food waste from the landfill in the 12 week project.

“This is equivalent to preventing 58 metric tons of C02 equivalent when you compare it to disposing of food waste in the landfill,” he told council.
MIT’s Climate Portal says that’s equivalent to taking about a dozen mid-sized cars off the road for an entire year.

And Hanlon says there was another upside to the pilot project.
“The overwhelming majority of people said that their awareness of how much food they’re wasting changed,” He says.

“When people are managing the food waste at home, they become more aware of how much they’re wasting in the first place and we always say that the most effective waste diversion strategy is to just not generate any in the first place.”
Most of the users cut down their garbage at the road by a bag per week.
Hanlon says 90 per cent of the people who bought into the pilot project are still using it today.

But the study also showed people are concerned about how much the units cost. Most people with the Foodcycler said they would not have paid the full $500 retail price for it but almost 80 per cent would pay between$150 to $250 for it if government would pick up the tab for the rest of the cost.

There were some complaints, usually that it was too small. Hanlon says a new, larger unit has been developed.

He’s asked the municipality to consider offering the Foodcycler to its residents at a reduced cost. He’ll be talking with township staff about the possibilities, including grants which might be available.