Permanent compost facility for Regina put on hold after contract termination

WATCH: The City of Regina and Evergen have agreed to terminate their contract to build a permanent composting facility.

Plans to construct a permanent composting facility in the R.M. of Edenwold near Pilot Butte through the City of Regina and EverGen will no longer be happening.

The city gave an update on their composting facility and green bin operations Wednesday and said the two sides have agreed to mutually end their contract.

“The city’s food and yard waste will continue to be delivered to the temporary site for composting. Currently this temporary site is operated by EverGen. Until we have a new processor to take over, city staff will operate this site,” Carolyn Kalim, director of water, waste and environment for the City of Regina said.

In 2023 the R.M. of Edenwold shut down plans to build the facility near the town of Pilot Butte after residents raised concerns of potential odors from the materials in the facility.

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Kalim said EverGen has been accommodating during the transition process and is training city staff to take over operations for residents.

“This requires no change to their current behavior. Residents should continue to use their green cart and their food and yard waste material will be delivered to the temporary site for processing,” Kalim said.

“The current temporary site is smaller than ideal for our processes, but we anticipate we can continue to receive the volume that we’ve been seeing coming through the site.

Kalim explained there were challenges with EverGen when trying to get a permanent site built.

“As we were looking to make changes to the contract to facilitate that, we really felt that we were getting into a place where a full and public transparent procurement process would be the best way to kind of continue to pursue that.”

The city is looking to find a new processor and is committed to getting a new and permanent site built.

“We’re looking forward to all of the industry expertise that is out there to potentially bid on our new customer proposals,” Kalim said.