Green cart organic waste pickup use has stagnated and potentially even dropped off
This year’s forecast of 4,861 tonnes picked up is a slight decrease from the 5,199 recorded in 2024, and follows two years which saw numbers hover around the same mark.
All this points to the program not taking off as much as some believe it should, drawing the attention of the operations committee of city council during Monday’s meeting.
Spurred by city council members’ questions, city Environmental Services director Renée Brownlee said that it appears as though those who want to participate in the program, are.
“I think those who are participating really absorb the education and the campaigns, whereas those who already have decided that they’re not going to participate turn a blind eye to it,” Brownlee said, pointing to a number of misconceptions as hampering their efforts.
In a recent survey of 3,026 households in Chelmsford, Hanmer, Minnow Lake and Sudbury’s South End, the city found that 45 per cent of households put green carts out at least once during a four-week study period (48 per cent of single-family households, 21 per cent of multi-unit).
Following Monday’s meeting, Sudbury.com asked Brownlee what the misconceptions around the green cart program are, and what staff tell those who are reluctant to use the carts.
“A lot of people have the ‘yuck’ factor,” she said, adding that many people are afraid of the green carts will smell and attract animals.
“When I talk to people, I tell them, it’s the same garbage you’re putting in your garbage can,” she said. “Does it stink in your garbage? Does it attract fewer animals if it’s in your garbage bin? We’re just asking you to put it in another container.”
Where municipal curbside garbage pickup is once every two weeks, both organics and recycling pickup is weekly.
The city provides green carts free of charge. The hardshell containers include a locking mechanism to keep animals out.
Another myth is that organic waste ends up at the landfill site anyway, so what’s the point?
Proper composting is a more complex process than simply adding organic matter to a landfill site, Brownlee said.
“It’s a careful process where you need the right mixture of nitrogen to carbon, humidity, oxygen, and you have to turn it,” she said. “It’s kind of like baking almost, and if you bake it properly it turns into compost, but in the landfill site it’s devoid from all of that.”
At landfill sites, organic waste slowly decomposes, lets off methane and adds to the toxicity of leachate, the poisonous effluvia that flows out of landfill sites.
“It doesn’t compost in the landfill, we need to help that along,” Brownlee said.
The city sells compost at city landfill sites for $37 per tonne, and city council members voted earlier this year to provide compost free of charge to community gardens.
Apart from educating people as to the misconceptions around green cart organics pickup, it’s unclear what the solution might be, though Brownlee was asked what more-successful municipalities do.
“A lot of municipalities that have been more successful have implemented a clear bag program, like Guelph, and some municipalities have a pay for use program for garbage, so there is no allowable limit at the curb, and it really encourages residents to participate more in those diversion programs,” Brownlee said.
“Some folks feel that if they can meet the limit of the garbage bag, there’s no need to participate, so every little bit helps.”
The city had been looking at a clear garbage program wherein residents are required to use clear garbage bags so garbage collectors and staff at city landfill sites can see into bags to monitor their contents for organic waste and recyclable materials that shouldn’t be there. It’s a waste diversion program that essentially forces people to recycle and compost organics if they want their refuse picked up.
Last year, city council members hosted a series of lengthy debates on the matter, but ultimately deferred making a decision until the end of 2026.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.