How Anyone Can Compost in Toronto – Saving Landfill Space and Reducing Waste

Food waste isn’t waste at all. In fact, it’s all organic. Any sort of food scraps or organic related waste can be separated and recycled either in a composting facility or in someone’s own compost bin.

In Toronto, as of 2015, organic waste made up 40% of the garbage sent to our Ontario landfills. When there, they create greenhouse gas. Unfortunately, organic food scraps like this can’t be thrown in with recycling because they will contaminate otherwise recyclable materials. So they are a bit of a different sort of recyclable.

In Toronto, you can compost easy. As long as you have a dedicated composting station and space – which admittedly not all Torontonians have – anyone any compost. Before we get into how to compost in Toronto, it’s important to remember what’s compostable. Almost any biodegradable materials can be composed. A quick short list of what materials you can include in your compost bin includes dairy products, egg shells, fruits and vegetable scraps, meats or bones, noodles, rice, grains, bread, empty cereal boxes, paper bags, parchment paper, cardboard, pizza boxes, newspaper, used paper dishes as long as they don’t have plastic coatings, leaves, grass clippings, flowers, and plants.

There’s a lot of opportunity to compost in Toronto, thankfully. If you live in a new condo development or some sort of multi-unit residential building, many have organic waste programs. They can collect your organic waste and take it somewhere else to be composed. If you have some backyard space or front yard space to work with, you also may choose to create a composting bin. If you don’t have any space to make a composting station with, fortunately, Toronto’s green bin program will collect organic waste and ship it off somewhere to be appropriately processed.

Any property that’s capable should have some sort of compost program in place. Composting saves landfill space and will help to provide us with a greener future. There’s no reason not to consider starting your own, if you have the means to do so. If you have a garden or kids, it’s an opportunity to learn more about the environment and get some value from. The result, after all, with composting is nutrient-rich soil which can be used to nourish flower and veggies. So there’s certainly a lot of reasons to get on board with composting.

If you want to have your own composting bin, you can either purchase one from a store or work to create your own. Some people build them from recycled plywood. If you have old plastic storage bins, this is another thing to use. If you’re new to composting and want to use your compost in a garden or similar environment, patience is important. Composting doesn’t occur overnight. It can take up to 3 months for everything to break down into a nutrient-rich soil. There’s no real way to accelerate this degradation process. That said, time will work some magic if you allow it to.

Core Mini Bins is a waste management and garbage pick-up company with a focus on eco-friendly practices in waste disposal. Ontario throws out 4 million tonnes of organic waste every year. Only 25% of this ends up in an organic waste green bin. If your bin is full or composting’s a possibility, do it up and help minimize the waste that our province contributes to landfills.