Conversations with Growing City

I absolutely love watching Dragon's Den, especially when there are amazing new innovations or services that have the potential to make major changes. Back in January of 2013, a company called Growing City made their sales pitch to the dragons. Green Earth Organics member and Growing City employee, Genevieve, agreed to speak with us about this fast growing company and the impact they've had on improving our planet.

Can you tell me a little about what Growing City does?

Of course! Growing City is an Organics and Recycling service provider. In a nutshell, we provide offices, restaurants, hotels, cafés as well as commercial and residential buildings organics and recycling collection services.

How has Growing City evolved since we saw you on Dragon’s Den?

Oh boy! Well, for one, I was hired as the first full-time sales manager in order to manage the influx of requests we got from that first appearance on the show. After that, we were able to hire 2 more staff members for our operations side of things, one driver and one operations manager. And, at the beginning of this year we also added a new vehicle to our fleet. So needless to say, things are going great!

So, break it down for me. What happens to the organic waste after you pick it up?

After we collect your organics, our driving team brings the materials to one of [your city's] approved organics processing facilities. We’ve been working with Enviro-Smart Organics and they’re great! At the facility, our load gets weighed and then dumped into a pile in order to start the composting process. The materials get turned every once in a while and, after a few months, you have nutrient rich soil which is distributed... to farmers who will grow more fruits and vegetables to go into your client’s bins. We literally come back full-circle, so neat!

What is the best way for the average person to get started?

Growing City is currently only just in the Metro Vancouver area, but the company is looking for partners in Alberta and the rest of Canada as well, so that soon everyone can take advantage of composting whether at home or at work.

Absolute best way is to contact us. There are a few ways you can do that:

Send us a request online: http://www.growingcity.com/get-started-free-quote-today

Call us: 1-855-WE-COMPO (932-6676)

Send us an email: info@growingcity.ca

Tweet to us: @GrowingCity

Send us a note on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/yourGrowingCity 

Following is for Metro Vancouver Members:

Does Growing City have any suggestions to help people living in cities or buildings without a compost service?

Yes of course! The City of Vancouver has extended collection to apartment buildings that already have city provided waste hauling services so, if you’re one of those, send them a note to get your green bin. If your building is not eligible for then, that’s where we come in.

Just contact us through the channels noted above, whether or not you’re on strata council, we can help you get them on board!

Metro Vancouver has a ban on organics at their landfills coming into effect January in 2015. How do you think this will affect residents of Vancouver and their neighbors?

From the last meeting we had with Metro Vancouver, this is what will happen in January 2015:

The accepted threshold for organics in a load of garbage will be 5%

The garbage haulers who go over this 5% threshold will be fined 50% of their regular tipping fee (108$ /metric tonne at the moment)

Metro Vancouver will begin giving out fines as of June 2015

Since it will be difficult for haulers to determine which clients are contaminating their loads, the thought is that the fines will be redistributed among all of their clients, unless it can be shown that an organics program is already in place. 

So although this ban will not impact residents directly, the costs will end up coming back to them indirectly. We say, better safe than sorry, call us today so we can get you to start recycling your food scraps.