ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

Date: January 23, 2001
Author/Local L. Moffit/6058

RTS No. 01861

CC File No. 3756

Council: February 13, 2001

TO:	Vancouver City Council
FROM:	General Manager of Engineering Services
SUBJECT:	Grasscycling Workshop Feasibility Study

RECOMMENDATION

A. THAT Council approve the expenditure of $15,000 from the Solid Waste Capital Reserve for a grasscycling workshop feasibility study, subject to receiving matching federal funds from the Green Municipal Enabling Fund.

B. THAT Council approve the solicitation of private sponsorship for the workshops to offset costs.

POLICY

Council has established a goal of reducing the solid waste stream by 50 percent.

All expenditures from the Solid Waste Capital Reserve require Council approval.

There is no existing Council policy on sponsorship.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this report is to seek Council approval to carry out a feasibility study this year on the effectiveness of providing grasscycling workshops to residents. Staff also plan to solicit private sponsorship from lawn mower manufacturers and retailers for the workshops to offset costs.

BACKGROUND

What is grasscycling? Also called "mulching", it can best be summed up by the phrase: "Just leave the clippings on the lawn!". Over the past few years, a number of companiesthat manufacture lawnmowers have introduced modern, electric mulching lawnmowers that chop the grass finely and blow the cuttings down deep into the lawn, even under wet and heavy mowing conditions. With this improvement in mulching mowers, it is an opportune time to start promoting grasscycling to Vancouver residents through advertising and education.

The $25 million federal Green Municipal Enabling Fund is offering grants for feasibility studies that assess the technical, engineering, environmental and/or economic viability of proposed municipal environmental projects. Engineering Services submitted an "intent to apply" in August of 2000 and preliminary approval was given in November of 2000. Our formal application was submitted in January 2001 and we expect a decision on final funding sometime in March of 2001.

DISCUSSION

Grasscycling has many benefits for the resident, the City and the environment in general.

Advantages of grasscycling to the resident:

· Improves the quality of a resident's lawn by keeping nutrients and moisture on the lawn. Clippings from a typical 1000 sq.ft. of lawn in one year contain 5.3 lbs. of nitrogen, 1.8 lbs. of phosphorus and 4.8 lbs. of potassium. For this reason, grasscycling greens up the lawn earlier in the Spring and keeps it greener later in the Fall.
· Saves mowing and raking time for residents. Bagging clippings almost doubles the mowing time required compared to grasscycling.

Advantages to the City:

· Reduces the need to collect and compost grass clippings. Self-management by the resident is more cost effective than City collection programs. An example of this is our existing promotion and sale of subsidized backyard composters to residents which we started in 1990. To date, 29,000 composters have been sold and they divert an estimated 7,000 tonnes of material per year.
· Reduces the smell of rotting grass that may occur during the collection process.
· Urban males between the ages of 30 and 65 years old are a target audience that is often difficult to reach with waste reduction messages. Grasscycling should be of interest to this group and that may also lead them to be more receptive to other waste reduction messages.

Advantages to the environment:

· Saves water by reducing the need to water the lawn as often. This complements the City's and the Region's promotion of waterwise lawn and garden care.
· Reduces the use of fertilizer and pesticides on lawns, which reduces the amount of chemicals going into the groundwater and into the overflow to the sewers.
· Reduces pollution by cutting down on the number of trucks used to collect yard trimmings.

The proposed feasibility study will attempt to determine the effectiveness of grasscycling workshops in encouraging self-management of yard waste through grasscycling and lawn mulching. The workshops will focus on grasscycling and mulching mowers, along with some emphasis on waterwise lawn care as well. We plan to run five workshops with 15 residents in each workshop for a total of 75 residents. The workshops will run in May of this year with the final report being produced in September.

The effectiveness of the workshops will be measured by:

· the reduction in grass set out at curb for municipal collection and composting, including the reduced cost impact on fleet size and pollution.
· an estimate of possible reduction in pesticide, herbicide and synthetic fertilizers through grasscycling based on a literature review.
· the cost of grasscycling workshops.
· the long-term or habit change of participants (likelihood of continuing to grasscycle) and participant satisfaction.

With Council approval, we also plan to determine the likelihood and ability to attract ongoing private sponsorship for future grasscycling workshops. We will approach the manufacturers and retailers of grasscycling mowers to sponsor such things as part of the cost of the workshops, a reduced price for residents on mowers, a raffle for a free mower, etc.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

The total cost of the grasscycling workshops feasibility study is estimated to be $30,000 as shown below. Half of this cost is to be a grant from the federal Green Municipal Enabling Fund and half is to come from the Solid Waste Capital Reserve.

$3,200 sponsorship work
$6,200 workshop curriculum preparation
$4,800 advertising in local/ethic newspapers for participants
$2,750 research through a literature review
$1,500 run workshops for 75 residents
($750) revenue from $10 fee
$6,000 data gathering
$2,500 phone survey
$3,800 prepare final report

$30,000 total cost (City share is $15,000)

This cost is relatively high because it includes the feasibility study and initial preparation of a curriculum for the workshops which could be used in future years. We plan to charge a fee of $10 to the residents who participate in the pilot workshops this year, just to ensure that the people who register are reasonably serious about grasscycling.

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

City Farmer is the nonprofit organization which manages the City's compost demonstration garden and the regional compost hotline. City Farmer has the expertise in the area of grasscycling and composting education and they will carry out all the work of the feasibility study shown below. It is also an advantage to use City Farmer to this extent because cost sharing under the Green Municipal Enabling Fund does not cover City staff. City Farmer currently answers questions from the public about grasscycling, as well as distributing copies of the GVRD's "Natural Lawn Care" brochures and a list of mulching mowers that are available for purchase in the region.

COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

About $4,800 will be spent advertising the availability of the workshops in six local/ethnic newspapers. This is closely equivalent to the advertising we do each Spring for the City's worm bin workshops. The final report of the feasibility study will be made available on our municipal web page. Distribution will also occur through the regular meetings that we have with the municipal recycling and compost coordinators in the Vancouver region.

CONCLUSION

Grasscycling is advantageous because it improves the quality of a resident's lawn, while reducing our collection costs and the use of water and pesticides on lawns. Workshops should be an excellent way to promote grasscycling, because they provide direct education, which is usually the key to long-term changes in behaviour. After the feasibility study is complete in the Fall of 2001, the General Manager of Engineering Services will report back on the success of the workshops and the efforts to obtain sponsorship, with a recommendation about continuing the workshops on an annual basis.

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(c) 1998 City of Vancouver