Edmontonians who live in apartments and condos are going to have to pick up a food scraps bin for their kitchens.
That’s after the city council approved a new bylaw Wednesday that expanded food scraps and recycling collection to apartments and condos, among other changes.
“Increasing the separate collection of food scraps and recyclables will help keep more waste out of the landfill and reduce emissions,” the city said in a news release.
Read more:
Edmonton moves to tire single-use plastics, Styrofoam containers
The city said this change will bring food scrap collection to 167,000 homes across 3,400 properties between fall of 2023 and 2027.
Each building will need to have disposal bins or carts for each type of waste close to each other, and the city says it will work with individual properties to make sure the requirements of the bylaws can be met.
Read more:
New garbage, food scraps bins coming to more Edmonton homes
Ward Métis Coun. Ashley Salvador said the addition of apartments and condos to the food scraps collection program is exciting.
“Ensuring that our multi-stream collection is not only applicable to individual residential homeowners but also multi-family is a really important step,” she said.
“I think that it will be a fantastic change across Edmonton.”
Another change to the bylaw is around the types of liners allowed in food scrap containers.
“The city initially required that any plastic bags used in food scrap carts be BPI or BNQ-certified compostable,” said the city.
“However, in practice, compostable plastics do not completely break down in most cities and regional industrial processing facilities and, as a result, are removed from the organic stream during processing.”
The city said residents can use any paper or plastic bag as a liner now but the approach with the least environmental impact is to avoid the use of bags or liners. The next preferred liner would be a paper bag or newspaper.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.