A City of Saskatoon owned and run organics processing facility will be located about 400 metres south of the existing Landfill.  The City of Saskatoon has announced that the federal government is going to help offset the estimated $22.1 million cost to the tune of $8.4 million through the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund.

Brendan Lemke, Director of Water & Waste Operations says the City is going to phase out the compost depot on the west side and it will be moved to Material Recovery Centre at the Landfill.  The City of Saskatoon is at 25,000 tons now in terms of the amount of organics material generated through the green bin program and will build an organics processing facility that can handle 40,000 tons.

Lemke says from a taxpayer point of view, the cost of building the facility was built into the rates which were initially set because the City was already paying for processing -the rates were based on the cost of processing from the get-go.  So when the City builds its own facility it will be part of already expected costs. And he says they expect to be able to do it at a lower cost than what they are currently paying Loraas.  As well it helps the City manage their own risk where the cost could  increase at the behest of the provider.

Earlier this year the City of Saskatoon announced that recycling would become the responsibility of the province in 2027.  Lemke says organics was never part of that transition.