FAQs

A - Backyard composting is a great way to discard of kitchen scraps, and we encourage homes to continue to compost in their own yards. However, there are many items that can go in your green bin that do not usually go in a residential composter including:
♦ Meat and bones
♦ Fat and grease
♦ Dairy products
♦ Dry and cooked pasta
♦ Soiled cardboard
♦ Paper towel
♦ Facial tissue
♦ Any other food items that are leaving your composter too wet or too dry.

Use the food waste cart for all of the organic items that you cannot put in your composter to further decrease the amount of garbage in your collection   

A - No.  Yard waste such as grass clippings, raked leaves, branches, rocks and soil are not permitted in the green bin.  BUT, you can place garden waste such as spoiled fruit and vegetables, garden vines and trimming and all plants and flowers can go into the green bin.  Please shake off excess soil.  

Each municipality provides different yard waste collection events each year - please call your municipality to find out the details for yard waste pick ups.  Yard waste can be taken to the McKelvey Creek Regional Landfill year round.  User fees apply.  

A - The food waste is sent to a transfer station at the McKelvey Creek Regional Landfill.  From the transfer station, the food waste is taken to a facility in Salmo, called 'The Central Salmo Composting Facility' that is owned and operated by the Regional District of Central Kootenay.  

No, you do not have to use liners in either your green bin or kitchen catcher.  

However, should you choose to line either bin, please use an approved 'paper' compost bag such as the 'Bag to Earth' products, or use soiled crumpled newspaper, soiled cardboard or boxboard to line the bins.  

*Note*  Plastic Bag type liners are NOT accepted in the program - even if labelled compostable or biodegradable.  

A - Plastic Bags do not properly compost or break down in the Central Salmo Composting Facility, resulting in a mess of plastic contamination that is difficult to remove.  In order to produce a usable compost end product, the new facility must meet strict provincial regulations which prohibits plastics of any kind, including those labelled compostable or biodegradable.  

A - No.  Pet waste is not accepted in the curbside green bin collection program.  Please bag all pet waste and cat litter and put in your garbage.  

A - Put it out for collection anyway.  This will help reduce odour and other 'yuck' factors, making it less of an attractant to bears and other animals.  

A - Not sure?   Call us!  We can appreciate wanting to do your best to keep compostable and organic materials out of the landfill.  However, contamination is difficult to separate and leads to valuable compostable material being sent to the landfill.  If you are not sure, play it safe and CALL US.  

A – This is up to YOU.  If residents treat their green bin responsibly the same way they treat their garbage responsibly, there shouldn’t be a problem with bears.  We are all in bear territory in the RDKB.  Proper management of our waste is integral in limiting bear-human conflicts.  We have many ‘tips and tricks’ for securing our green bins and the contents such as:  

• Place green bins at roadside only on the morning of collection – never the night before
• Store your garbage and green bins in a closed, locked location such as a garage or shed  
• Minimize odors by freezing organics such as meat and other smelly food scraps, and don’t put them in the green bin until collection day
• If a bin is stored outside, anchor it to a post using a cable so that it can’t be dragged away
• Take your green bin to the curb for collection every week, even if you only have a small amount of organics in the bin
• Keep bins clean

The RDKB will have a certified bear bin trade-in program this fall.  Please see our Join the Conversation page for details as we get closer to the roll-out of our new RDKB-Kootenay Region green bin program.  

For more tips on how to make your home less attractive to bears and other wildlife, check out WildSafeBC at:   https://wildsafebc.com/

• This new program is part of the Regional Solid Waste Services Budget.  This is a budget for which revenues are obtained from taxation, tipping fees, garbage tag sales, short term borrowing, long term borrowing, grant funding and use of existing reserve monies.  The budget covers all aspects of operations, infrastructure upgrades, administration.  As it is a regional service, the overall costs for implementation of the green bin program in the McKelvey Creek Wasteshed is spread over the entire RDKB.  The revenue obtained from the sale of garbage tags will reduce the overall revenue requirements and will have impacts to all areas of the RDKB.
• Of course there will be additional costs associated with the introduction of a new waste reduction program.  However, these costs will allow the RDKB to delay or not incur future and much more significant costs associated with new landfill development and meeting ever increasing regulatory standards associated with landfill gas generation and capture.  Further benefits of the program are minimizing green house gas emissions and transforming a current waste product (food waste) into a beneficial end product (Class A compost).
• There are no direct costs associated with use of the green bin, whereas garbage tags are required for the garbage component. This is intended to be a user pay incentive to encourage residents to utilize the green bin as well as other available recycling programs (eg. RecycleBC).  A user pay system such as this is the foundation to the RDKB Solid Waste Management Plan and has been successfully implemented in the Boundary portion of the RDKB since 2015.

Once you receive your Green Bin, and once you have read through the information package, if you decide you do not want to participate in the program, you can return your Green Bin to the RDKB.  

Email 'knowwaste@rdkb.com' or call 1-800-355-7352 or (250) 368-9148.  

Please include your full name, address, phone number and email.  

You can drop off your Green Bin at the RDKB main office in Trail, or we can arrange pick-up in September once all of the bins have been delivered to the residents of our area.