Caring for your Green Bin
The Green Bin is designed so that the dense and heavy organic waste can be mechanically hoisted into collection trucks to protect the health of City workers. Fill it up with as much allowable waste as will fit in it with its lid closed and locked. It's a good idea to fill it up with other organic materials before topping it up with yard waste. [LEARN MORE ABOUT YARD WASTE]
You can mark your Green Bin with your address and roll it out to the curb by 6 a.m. on
your garbage collection day. Please, place the Green Bin beside your garbage for
collection.
[FIND YOUR COLLECTION DAY]
- Between collections, keep the Green Bin in a shed, garage, or a sheltered, shady spot against an exterior wall of your home.
- Keep it loose: make sure the waste in your Green Bin is loose (not packed) so that it shakes out easily when collected. Layering wet and dry waste can help ensure it all shakes out during the mechanical collection process.
- In the winter, you may wish to line your Green Bin or Kitchen Container to contain organic waste and prevent it from freezing to your Green Bin. Follow winter waste placement guidelines for putting out your Green Bin in winter — put it in a safely accessible and clearly visible ground level spot.
- Keep the lid locked to keep animals out. Peppermint oil, cayenne or chili pepper, or hot sauce can act as anti-gnawing repellants and help deter neighbourhood animals from taking an interest in your Green Bin.
- Put your Green Bin out weekly to help keep it clean. Regularly rinsing your Green Bin out on the lawn also helps to keep it clean.
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Follow these suggestions and you won't have problems with odours or flies (or maggots,
which are fly larvae):
- To repel flies, sprinkle salt or vinegar on the rim of the Green Bin.
- To absorb odours use baking soda, or mask odours with bay, eucalyptus, mint, camphor or pennyroyal leaves. Lemon juice and vinegar also mask odours.
- If you do encounter maggots, kill them with vinegar or salt.
- Leave smellier items, like meat and bones out of your Green Bin until collection day (try putting them in a paper bag in the freezer).
- Try layering allowable wet waste (eg. food scraps) and dry waste (eg. soiled paper products) to cut down on odours and cleaning.
- You may choose to line your Green Bin. If so, see "About Liners" in the next section.
- Your Green Bin stays with your property. You can mark it with your address and please leave it behind if you move.
- It is recommended that when placing the yard waste in the Green Bin you either use a paper yard waste bag or line the bottom of your bin with newspaper. This will help to ensure your bin is emptied properly.
Caring for your Kitchen Container
The seven litre beige container can be used in your house — likely in your kitchen — to collect scraps and other Green Bin waste items.
- You can empty this container into your Green Bin daily.
- About Liners: You do not need to line the Kitchen Container, although it is a good idea to do so in winter to keep organic waste from freezing to the sides of the Green Bin. Use paper, sheets of newspaper or a paper bag to line your Kitchen Container. Paper bags designed for the Kitchen Container are sold at local retailers. You can also choose to line the Green Bin with sheets of newspaper or a paper yard waste bag. Do not use plastic bags — not even biodegradable or compostable bags that look like plastic (as they do not break down quickly enough and are not easily distinguishable from plastic bags).
See the Green Bin FAQ site for answers to common Green Bin questions.
Use the Customer Service feedback form or call 613-546-0000 for a quick response to your question.
