North Cowichan's organics Kitchen Pitch-In starts around May
Curbside organics pickup starts in early summer in North Cowichan.
Council announced Thursday green organics bins will be delivered to some 9,200 households in April.
Inside, folks will find a kitchen container and a guide detailing how the program works, sample compostable bags, and what food waste is OK for pickup.
That garbage — now shipped off-island to a landfill, leaving Cowichanians with a $4-million bill — will include cooked food, meat, fish, bones, baked goods, greasy paper, and waxed-paper food waste such as milk cartons and fast-foods cups.
Mayor Jon Lefebure expected about half of the municipality’s household waste now dumped will become compost at Nanaimo’s ICC Group plant.
Kitchen junk will be collected weekly using special new trucks with separate compartments for garbage and green-bin trash.
“We put this program off for two or three years,” said Councillor Al Siebring.
“We had to replace some garbage trucks, so we bought trucks to accommodate this new waste system,” he said of the new rigs that should hit the road in May.
In December, Lefebure explained the municipality’s $310,000 kitchen-waste drive could save taxpayers some $30,000 a year in regional trash-tipping fees.
North Cow’s program will twin Duncan’s current collection and recycling of kitchen wastes.
Program costs include $153,000 from council’s pollution reserve fund, and an annual hike in garbage and recycling fees to $118 from $114 for five years.
“It’s an investment that’ll start paying off immediately because we’ll start getting that annual tipping-fee reduction,” stated Lefebure.
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