Heather Wright/The Independent

Plympton-Wyoming may be the latest testing grounds for a home composting unit.

Town council expressed interest in being part of a pilot program for the Food Cycler, a counter top unit that looks like a bread maker but which composts household food waste overnight. The unit, according to Jacob Hanlon of Foodcycler Municipal Solutions, can turn five litres of waste into 200 grams of dry, odourless compost overnight costing just 15 cents in electricity per cycle.

The move could be a game changer if it catches on. Household wastes, Hanlon says, is between 25 and 50 per cent organic food waste. The average Canadian family spends about $1,766 a year on food that is wasted and that food heads to the landfills producing 56.6 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Forty-seven municipalities have already tested the units, including St. Clair Township. Hanlon says 96 per cent of the people recommend the units and continued using after the pilot project was over.

Hanlon says a municipality the size of Plympton-Wyoming should have a pilot project of about 200 homes.

That’s something Mayor Gary Atkinson said the municipality is interested in. “Programs of this nature with subsidies from the federal government… may be something worth trying. So I think it would be a good idea at least to obtain an official proposal from Foodcycler to see what they have to offer and what the terms are, for councils consideration in the future.”

A pilot project with 200 homes would cost the municipality about $20,000.