Vancouver Recycling, Organics and Garbage: What Goes Where

What the City collects, and what it does not

The City of Vancouver collects garbage and operates the green bin programme for food scraps and yard waste from houses and duplexes, and it owns and operates the Zero Waste Centre, the Vancouver South Transfer Station and the landfill in Delta. What it does not do is collect recycling.

The City states this plainly: Recycle BC is the province-wide programme responsible for residential recycling services across British Columbia, including curbside and multi-family recycling in Vancouver. Questions about recycling service, schedules, missed pickups, bins, boxes and bags go to the service provider, not to the City.

Recycle BC has been revising its multi-family programme, including new collection contractors — Recycling Alternative in downtown and False Creek, and Emterra Environmental elsewhere — and an expanded list of accepted materials that includes flexible plastics in a separate cart. Curbside recycling for houses and duplexes is handled by a different contractor and has been changing on its own timetable.

Sorting, schedules and setting bins out

The City publishes a Waste Wizard tool that answers what to do with a specific item, and a VanSort game that tests the same knowledge. Between them they are a faster route to an answer than working from memory, because what is accepted is defined by the programme and reviewed over time.

Collection schedules are looked up by address, and the VanCollect app carries schedules and reminders. Bins are set out by the morning of the collection day, with clearance on all sides and above so that collection equipment can reach them. If there is too much for the bins, the City sells stickers for extra garbage bags, and larger garbage bins and green bins can be ordered.

The green bin: food scraps and yard waste

The green bin is the organics stream, and it takes food scraps and yard waste. The City publishes guidance for handling it in warm weather, because odours and pests are the main reason people give up on organics: line the kitchen container with newspaper, drain excess liquid in the sink, freeze particularly smelly scraps until collection day, empty the kitchen container into the green bin often rather than letting it fill, and rinse both containers occasionally.

Seasonal material has its own arrangements. Extra fall leaves are collected on a separate schedule during the leaf season, and they must go into paper bags or store-bought bins rather than plastic bags, stored dry and covered until the collection date. Christmas trees can be put out with green bin service, taken to a charity tree-chipping event, or brought to the transfer station or landfill, with all decorations and tinsel removed first.

Yard waste and clean, unfinished wood can also be dropped off at the transfer station or the landfill, which is the practical route for anything a green bin cannot hold.

What is not collected, and what happens to it instead

Large items are the most common problem. Mattresses, box springs, futons, furniture and appliances are not collected at the curb, and if they are not reusable they go to the Zero Waste Centre, the transfer station or the landfill, where fees may apply. Mattresses, box springs and futons are recycled at the transfer station or landfill rather than landfilled.

Electronics, power tools and small appliances go to a Zero Waste Reuse and Recycling event, the Zero Waste Centre, the landfill, or a Return-It electronics location. Clothing and textiles do not belong in the landfill either, and the City works with Metro Vancouver on reducing textile waste.

There is also a regulatory floor under all of this. Most recyclables are banned from disposal as garbage across Metro Vancouver under the region’s disposal ban programme, which means putting them in the garbage is not merely wasteful but contrary to regional rules. Drywall from businesses and contractors is not accepted at the landfill at all, and residential asbestos waste is accepted there only if prepared to the City’s specification.

The depots, the transfer station and the landfill

The City owns and operates a recycling depot and transfer station in south Vancouver, and an engineered landfill with a residential recycling depot in Delta. Each has a different role, and going to the wrong one wastes a trip.

• The Vancouver Zero Waste Centre handles large quantities of residential recyclables — the things that do not fit in a household programme.
• The Vancouver South Transfer Station is the destination for oversized items, yard and garden waste and clean wood.
• The Vancouver Landfill in Delta combines waste disposal with a residential recycling depot, and is also where residential asbestos waste is handled.
• Metro Vancouver’s depot look-up helps locate a facility for an item when the City’s own sites are not the right answer.

Apartment and condo buildings work differently

Multi-family buildings do not use the same collection arrangements as a house. Recycling in apartments and condominiums is part of Recycle BC’s multi-family programme, with its own contractors, its own accepted-material list and its own cart system, and the programme has been changing. The City publishes tools and resources aimed at building managers rather than residents for exactly this reason.

The practical consequence for a resident is that a problem at a building bin is usually a building-management or contractor issue rather than a municipal one. Garbage and green bin service at a multi-family property is arranged differently again from a single-family address, so the first useful question is which programme the building is in.