Less garbage will be heading to the Vancouver Landfill at Burns Bog but that doesn't mean it will close any sooner.
The current operating agreement between the City of Vancouver, Delta and Metro Vancouver has the landfill open until 2037.
Making news the past couple of years have been bold new waste reduction and recycling initiatives, however, they won't have an impact on that closure date.
Mike Brotherston, Delta's manager of climate action and environment, said the closure is a firm date established in the deal reached in 1999.
"That date was based on projected waste quantities at the time, based on the approved design capacity at the Vancouver Landfill," he said.
"Now there will be less than the design capacity, but that's when the agreement expires and nothing has changed there."
Brotherston said there's been no discussion on a new agreement to extend the closure date.
According to Metro Vancouver, the region will work with the City of Vancouver and the Corporation of Delta to reduce the quantity of waste going to the Vancouver Landfill to a maximum of 100,000 tonnes per year by 2020, not including wastetoenergy residuals.
The province last year approved the regional district's new solid waste plan, which has a target of achieving 70 per cent waste diversion by 2015 and 80 per cent by 2020.
According to the region, there's been a decline in garbage going to the Delta landfill, from 1.3 million tonnes in 2007 to just one million last year. It's resulted in the district deciding to reduce the size and scope of the waste-to-energy plant it intends to build.
One source of garbage that's on the decline is food waste, which makes up 21 per cent of the total. A number of municipalities, including Delta, have begun a separate food and green waste pickup programs.
The Delta program sees food waste picked up weekly from single-family homes, but engineering staff are still trying to figure out the best way to do the same for multi-family dwellings. Metro Vancouver is planning a full organics ban by 2015.
Some of the other materials that will no longer be allowed include mattresses as the region tries to bump up its current 55 per cent diversion rate to reach the lofty 80 per cent mark.
Meanwhile, there's also a plan to establish ecocentres, which are to be "one-stop" facilities that would accept virtually all recyclable materials.
Albert Shamess, Vancouver's director of waste reduction and recovery management, said despite the many waste diversion efforts planned or already underway that will result in lower tonnages, the landfill is still part of the region's long-term plans.
"It's not expected to close sooner than the agreement time frame right now, but we will certainly see reduced volumes going there," he said.
"At this point in time, it's the legal agreement that's driving the closure," he added.
Current projections indicate the landfill won't reach capacity until approximately 2060, however, the current closure date is still set at 2037.
While less solid waste will be ending up at the landfill over the next few years, other types of waste will continue going there.
In 2005, the landfill began accepting sludge and scum screenings from the Annacis Island wastewater treatment plant on a trial basis. The goal of the trial was to identify any health, safety, environmental or nuisance impacts.
In 2008, the Ministry of Environment authorized the ongoing disposal of sludge and scum screenings at the landfill, and in 2011 a total of 3,192 tonnes were accepted.
In 2009, the landfill began accepting drinking water treatment plant residuals from the Seymour Capilano Filtration Plant on a trial basis.
Last November, the ministry authorized the ongoing disposal of that waste at the landfill, and approximately 6,540 tonnes were accepted last year.
