Kitchen scraps include food wastes from fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, grains, bones and soiled paper products such as paper plates and napkins.

Kitchen scraps are a valuable resource and by keeping them separated from garbage they can be turned into a important soil amendment. Composted kitchen scraps contain nutrients and minerals essential for healthy plant development. They also encourage healthy soil ecosystems through the addition of micro-organisms. These organisms can help reduce garden pests and encourage beneficial insects, which can reduce or eliminate pesticide use.

This landfill disposal ban will be enforced the same as the region's other disposal bans. Waste is inspected when it is delivered to Hartland landfill. If a waste load contains excessive amounts of recyclable or compostable materials, the hauler may be subject to ticketing under CRD bylaw, in addition to the cost of disposal.

Residential kitchen scraps collection is conducted by a combination of municipal programs and private subscription services, depending on where you live.

• Detailed Breakdown by Municipality

Businesses owners, multi-family dwelling managers and residents on private subscription garbage collection service are advised to contact their waste haulers to arrange kitchen scraps collection services.

The kitchen scraps landfill ban includes items beyond 'traditional backyard composting’ such as meat, bones, fish, leftover cooked food, dairy products, moldy grain products like bread and pizza, and soiled paper products, like napkins and paper towels.

Backyard food waste digesters in combination with traditional backyard composting is an option to manage this material on your property. Contact the Compost Education Centre for information.

There are many environmental, economic and operational reasons why garburators should not be used for the disposal of kitchen scraps.

• Kitchen scraps are only coarsely ground up with a garburator so the waste generated could cause blockages in sewer pipelines.
• Garburated waste can contain high levels of fats, oils and grease, which can further contribute to blockages, odours and operational problems with pumps and equipment downstream in the collection system.
• A garburator costs the operator more to operate since it requires additional water and electricity.
• Screens capture the solid waste at the inlet of the treatment works. This screened material is delivered to the landfill and disposed of as controlled waste. This costs more than composting and the waste has less beneficial use.
• By composting kitchen scraps we can maximize the beneficial use of this recyclable material, reduce water and energy usage, preserve our sewer infrastructure and ultimately prolong the life of our landfill.

Kitchen scraps collected in the region by both municipal and private collectors are being processed at specialized in-vessel composting facilities primarily on Vancouver Island and periodically the Lower Mainland as required to meet operational needs.

The CRD provides transfer and processing services for kitchen scraps for waste haulers in the region. This allows for efficient transport of material to processing facilities while work towards long term strategies are explored.