Everyone knows that food is a big part of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. For the past three years, Green Action Centre has been working closely with these good folks to turn food waste from all that deliciousness into compost.
This year, there will be pilot projects to introduce composting in Festival Camping and for festival attendees who enjoy a meal in the food vendor area.
These pilots build on the significant amount of composting that now takes place at the Festival, including all of the:
- Beer and wine cups at the taverns, including backstage
- Plates, bowls, cutlery and food scraps from meals for the 2500 volunteers and performers backstage
- Food preparation scraps from the food vendors and from the volunteer dining tent backstage
That’s a lot of organic waste! These compostable materials are collected by two crews of volunteers who gather them up in bins, pails and bags. A few times over the course of the Festival, Samborski Environmental Ltd. comes by to pick it all up and turn it into high grade compost.
So if you’re out at the Folk Festival this July 6-10, keep an eye out for the compost pails, bins and cup collectors (aka cupsuckers) – more and more places to put your organic waste! For more information about this year’s Festival performers, tickets and features, visit the Festival web site.
Green Action Centre would like to see all large-scale composting initiatives succeed all the while remaining within provincial and city regulations. Some Green Action Centre staff had toured the Samborski’s composting site when it was located at McGillvray and the tour was arranged through the company directly. We are hoping to be able to visit their operations this fall at their new site, which we understand is on Brady landfill land. Touring facilities is an excellent way to learn about processes and to get a better idea of issues and challenges. Some Green Action Centre staff and volunteers have also toured the City of Winnipeg’s recycling facility (operated by Emterra Group) which is quite an eye opener and would be an excellent educational opportunity for anyone who participates in the blue box program and is interested in learning more.
I would like to first of all start off by saying I applaud the green initiative surging around Winnipeg, it is very refreshing to see people take a keen interest in helping the environment that most help destroy.
I have been following the story of the now “infamous” Samborski brothers and their crusade for the green answer and their battle with Manitoba politicians for quite some time, and support them fully, but I sometimes wonder how and most importantly where these food scraps are being processed. I would imagine there is a lot of money involved in the transaction.
How does the public and a business go about coming down to tour the facilities, and see how their money is being put to environmental use, that is if it is being done at the location of the business, considering the cease work permit that was reported months ago?
Mark W
I have had many tours from the Samborski’s. They have allowed myself and many others into their operation. There doors are always opened. I have found that if you call and ask for a tour of their facility that they will say well come on down. They allow you to get front and center with their compost piles and every time I was on their site there was no issue.
So all I can say is phone them or email me.
This is fantastic. I hope that everyone who enjoyed the Folk Fest made sure to put their compostables into the bins!
Kudos to Samborski Environmental Ltd. for the work they are doing for our planet.