More cities within Metro Vancouver will soon prod their residents to put kitchen scraps and other food waste in green bins for curbside pick-up instead of throwing it in the garbage.
All single-family homes in North and West Vancouver are now being offered kitchen scrap pick-up along with their yard waste. Delta made the move in April and it’s to be followed by Pitt Meadows and Bowen Island in June and Surrey in October.
By fall, organic food waste pick-up will be offered part of curbside service in 16 Metro municipalities, leaving Maple Ridge, Langley City and a few smaller communities still to go.
Diverting organic material, which makes up 30 per cent of Metro’s waste stream, is a big plank in the region’s strategy to raise its recycling rate to 70 per cent by 2015, from 55 per cent now.
Eventually, Metro is to ban food waste disposal in the garbage, requiring all residents to use their curbside option.