New upgrades coming to the Hartland Landfill in Saanich this year include a new cell, scales and kitchen scraps transfer station.
January saw Cell 4 open to expand capacity, help with noise reduction and allow staff to prepare the previous landfilling area – Cell 3 – for closure later in 2025.
The landfill planned ahead, as Cell 3 was expected to reach capacity between October 2024 and January 2025. In 2023 the CRD awarded a contractor $10,867,860 to prepare a new cell’s liner system to prevent water containing remnants of garbage from leaving the landfill site.
The new cell is the first of three that will collect the region’s solid waste until around 2050. The transition to a new part of the landfill is another signal to the public that Hartland is a limited space with a limited ability to receive waste, said Russ Smith, senior manager of the CRD’s environmental resource management.
The cell has absorbed the region’s waste since September 2016 and its successor, Cell 4, will see waste buried in a northern quadrant of the landfill property.
New scales aim to improve traffic flow to the latest landfilling area and provide faster service. Commercial traffic has been redirected to enter the landfill through the north entrance on Willis Point Road while the public entrance remains at 1 Hartland Ave.
The kitchen scraps transfer station offers a bigger, more efficient facility for handling food scraps to reduce GHG emissions and support upped waste diversion.
