How to have a green Thanksgiving

After enjoying a Thanksgiving meal, it’s time to scrape the plates and clean up. As you do, a great way you can give thanks to the community is by putting any leftover, unusable food scraps, such as fruit and vegetable peels, eggshells and meat bones, in the right place. 

Place your food scraps into the green bin, not the garbage. By doing so, you’ll help create nutrient-rich fertilizer for farmers’ fields that grow our food!

Here are examples of food scraps that – if they can’t be repurposed – belong in the green bin:

• coffee grounds
• eggshells
• fats, oils and grease
• meat and seafood bones
• nutshells
• potato peels
• steeped tea bags or tea leaves
• tomato skins

Never dispose of fruit or vegetable peels or other food products, including fats, oils and grease, down a drain or catch basin. Doing this can cause costly blockages and damages to the City of Vaughan’s stormwater or wastewater systems.Let fats, oils and grease cool and harden, then scrape them into the green bin. Liquid cooking oil is not accepted curbside.

Leaf and yard waste

Did you know pumpkins, straw and cornstalks can be tossed in with your leaf and yard waste bags? The City’s leaf and yard waste collection is on a weekly pickup schedule starting this week until Friday, Dec. 6.

Leaf and yard waste must be placed in Kraft paper bags or open-top rigid containers with handles, up to 121 litres (32 gallons) in size, and clearly marked “Leaf and Yard Waste.” Plastic bags are not permitted. Kraft paper bags must be kept dry – wet or damaged bags cannot be picked up as they will break during collection. 

Here are other items that are accepted in leaf and yard waste collection:

• plant material (no soil) and leaves
• branches, twigs and cuttings that are tied in secure bundles and less than 1.5 metres (five feet) in length and 0.6 metres (two feet) in diameter, weighing less than 20.5 kilograms (45 pounds)
• individual branches that are less than 10 centimetres (four inches) in diameter, bundled securely

Here are items that are not accepted in leaf and yard waste collection:

• stumps and root balls
• any leaf and yard waste material contaminated with household waste or non-leaf and yard waste, such as green bin organics
• sod, soil, rocks or stones 

Visit the City’s leaf and yard waste webpage to learn more.

Don’t guess – check what goes where!

If you don’t know where to dispose of an item, use the online ‘What Goes Where?’ sorting tool to check using the search function. You can also download the free Recycle Coach app from the Apple App Store or Google Play for more sorting help. The app also provides waste-less tips and a personalized collection schedule with optional alerts on what to put to the curb each week. 

To learn more about waste collection in Vaughan, visit vaughan.ca/waste.

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