'We do consider them to be successful': Green bins have 20-year history in Halifax

Maureen Tate, a Dartmouth, N.S., resident still has her original green bin.

She was interviewed by CBC News 21 years ago when the compost bins were widely introduced across the municipality, and at the time she said she supported the green-bin project.

When she watched the decades-old TV report on Sunday, she said she still feels the same way.

"Everything that I said is still relevant today," said Tate. "I think this is one of the best things [the municipality] ever did."

The municipality started distributing compost bins over a six-month period starting on July 6, 1998.

At the time, it said the bins would save money by extending the life of existing landfills.

The $8-million program started with 100,000 bins distributed across the region. The bins cost about $80 each.

A voice-activated computerized registration system was used to keep track of the bins, but that's no longer the case.

"That was a little bit unique in that the way they actually assigned a green bin to a home was through a radio-frequency, and then we were mapping it internally," said Maggie-Jane Spray, a municipal spokesperson.

"So we don't have any kind of technology on the green bins anymore. That was a brief period when we were first rolling this out. The way we map it out is matching it up to the serial number on the green bin to the civic address."

Today, there are 140,000 green bins out. The municipality has been putting out about 2,000 every year since the program began.

The bins cost about the same as they did in 1998, at $77 per bin.

Spray said the municipality has 88 per cent compliance in terms of people putting out their green bins for curbside collection.

"We do consider them to be successful," Spray said. "Making sure that we're composting helps the environment."

There have been several improvements made to the composting program over the years, Spray said.

Those include implementing paper bags instead of plastic bags to collect yard and leaf waste and removing cardboard from green-bin waste.

Composting facilities are scheduled to be upgraded in 2021 and municipal staff are exploring changes that could be made so less waste ends up in landfills. 

Spray said people in Halifax, for the most part, are using the bins correctly. She said products that are marketed as biodegradable, but have a plastic lining, shouldn't go in the green bin.

The municipality has a list of what should and shouldn't go into the bins on its website.

Weekly green bin collection for summer

Around the time the bins were introduced, people complained about the smell. But Spray said there haven't been any recent complaints about odours. 

Summer green-bin collection is now in effect, which means the bins can be placed at the curb on a weekly basis until Sept 27.

"I'm glad that they changed it to doing it weekly in the summer because of the heat and everything. I use it constantly. I use it for food scraps, yard scraps, whatever they allow me to put in it," Tate said.