'Smelly and gross' green bins major barrier to increased use: study

Starting next month, Ottawa residents will be able to use plastic bags in their green bins and city officials are hoping that will eliminatethe "ick factor" around the organic waste program.

Just over 30 per cent of residents with access to curbside green bins say they don't use them as often as they could because they consider them"smelly and gross," according to a survey of households commissioned by the city and carried out by Hill and Knowlton Strategies.

• Plastic bags to be allowed in green binsas of summer 2019

Last December, some 1,200 people across Ottawa were asked about their recycling and composting habits, and whether the city'scommunications strategy about the waste diversion program was working.

Of those surveyed, 77 per cent said they were using their curbsidebins. That's asignificant increase from the 50 per cent who said they were doing so in a 2014-15 city waste audit, although city staff cautioned the methodology in those two surveys was different.

New rules July 2

Regardless, on July 2, residents will be allowed to put kitchen and dog waste in plastic bags beforedumping it into their green bins.Municipalwaste officials arebetting that the new rules willchange the minds of those currently dumpingtheir organic waste into the garbage.

The Hill and Knowlton study appearsto back up that prediction: roughly six in 10 households surveyed said they'd use their bins more frequently if they could use plastic bags.

Renewi, the company that processes the city's organic waste, has invested in new equipment to sort out the plastic bags from compostable waste, with the city is on the hook for $626,000 ofthe cost of the new technology.

Allowing people to throw plastic bags in their green bins willdivert an additional 10,000 tonnesof organic waste from the landfill each year, said Rideau-Goulbourn Coun. Scott Moffatt, chair of the city's environment and climate protection committee.

• ANALYSIS | Plastic bags alone won't dig us out of this mess

While the plastic bags will still end up in the landfill, Moffatt said if organic waste ends up being diverted, it's a trade he can live with.

"The plastics are already there. They are going to the landfill now," he said

"We're actually trying to give plastics an extra life in your green bin. And we're not actually telling people to go out and buy more plastic bags. We're just giving people more opportunities to use their green bin."

The city said the changes to the green bin program are part of a review of its solid waste master plan, which will begin June 25.

The survey's results also reinforced a previously knownweak point in the green bin program: that relatively few apartment buildings in the city have access to it.