Food scraps belong in the green bin – not the garbage!
It’s harvest season and you may be getting ready to make homemade jams, sauces and more! When you are cleaning up, it’s important to remember food scraps, like tomato or grape skins, go in the green bin, not in the garbage or down the drain.
Approximately 60 per cent of all food waste in Ontario is sent to landfills, where it creates methane, a harmful greenhouse gas that pollutes our environment. By putting food scraps in the green bin, you’ll help create nutrient-rich fertilizer for farmers’ fields that grow our food.
Here are examples of food scraps that – if they can’t be repurposed – should go in the green bin:
- Banana peels
- Coffee grounds
- Eggshells
- Fats, oils and grease
- Grape skins
- Meat and seafood bones
- Nutshells
- Steeped tea bags or tea leaves
- Tomato skins
Never dispose of fruit or vegetable peels or other food products down a drain or catch basin. Doing this can cause costly blockages and damage to the City of Vaughan’s stormwater and wastewater systems. Water that enters the stormwater system is untreated before travelling into bodies of water, including Lake Ontario – the source of our drinking water.
You can also put fruit and vegetable peels, grass clippings and yard waste in a backyard composter!
Compost reduces the need to use fertilizer and pesticides, improves water quality, conserves water and stores carbon in soil – all of which help combat climate change. Composting can also decrease your household’s curbside waste by up to 30 per cent.
Ready to do your part? Get started by purchasing a backyard composter from the City at vaughan.ca/ServiceVaughan.
Wooden crates and bushel baskets should be bagged and placed in the garbage – they cannot go in the green bin or blue box.
Check what goes where
If you don’t know where to dispose of an item, use the online ‘What Goes Where?’ sorting tool to check using the search function. You can also download the free Recycle Coach app from the Apple App Store or Google Play for more sorting help. The app also provides waste-less tips and a personalized collection schedule with optional alerts on what to put to the curb each week.
To learn more about waste collection in Vaughan, visit vaughan.ca/waste.
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