Enjoy more time and less waste at Eco Stations this fall

The City's four Eco Stations will be open seven days a week from September 29 to November 9. Drop off items like yard waste and household hazardous waste, free of charge, daily from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Extended hours make it more convenient to divert waste from the landfill by using your local Eco Station.

Yard waste can be dropped off at an Eco Station for composting when these guidelines are followed:

• Yard waste (leaves, twigs, branches, fallen fruit, dead plants, grass) is loose or in a paper yard waste bag;
• Branches are no more than 4 feet long and 2 inches in diameter.

Items that can't be recycled or composted, such as some types of household hazardous waste, are disposed of properly to minimize the risk to people and the environment. For a full list of accepted items, please see here.

On November 10, Eco Stations will transition to regular winter hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Visit edmonton.ca/ecostations

Tell One Friend: Prepare Your Autumn Leaves

It's autumn. Tree leaves fall in brilliant shades of yellow, orange and red.  Before long, those leaves turn brown and get crunchy. Preparing leaves is an important step in home composting and reducing waste.

How to Prepare Autumn Leaves

• Mulch dried leaves on your lawn. Mow over the leaves once or twice to break them down. They are a great source of carbon for your lawn.
• Store leaves as 'browns' for your home compost. This is a smart way to have a stash of browns for next spring and summer
• Mulch dried leaves on your plant beds. Just pile them around plants. It's like free fertilizer for your soil.

Using leaves on your landscape means less waste picked up at the curb.

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Share Your Message Effectively

Try these tips to connect with friends, family, neighbours and co-workers. 

Model the Behaviour

Show friends and family how you prepare and use leaves.

Make it Normal

Post photos of your autumn leaves on social media.

Offer Timely Prompts

While a neighbour is cleaning their yard, ask them for their leaves and mention that they are valuable. Your enthusiasm shows how they might be losing a valuable resource of their own.

Give Positive Feedback

"Those mulched leaves on your lawn look natural. I'm excited to see your lawn next spring."

Visit edmonton.ca/composting

Previous Tell One Friend: Take Batteries out to the Eco Station

More Trees Please

On August 21, MCRs planted trees in Mill Creek Ravine along Hazeldean neighbourhood.
They planted 214 trees in total. Way to go MCRs!

 

For more information: visit edmonton.ca/mcrp

 

Cover Crops: Part I

If your goal is healthy food, then your veggie patch needs cover crops.
They are part of a more natural approach to growing food.

Microbes in the soil provide nutrients to your plants. If soil runs out of microbes then plants don't get as many nutrients as they could with the help of a healthy food web. Ensure the life in your soil has what it needs to thrive.

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Some easy ways to get started:

Peas

Early planting of peas will be the first crop to brown off. Right after the first picking, plant oats. They will fill in fast and won't interfere when pulling the vines off their supports and lay them on the soil as residue. You can start a flat of spinach in late July and transplant them into the open spaces, just drop them right into the pea residues. Careful not to pull out the roots.

Salad Greens

Greens don't take much from soil, so you can constantly plant more seeds throughout the summer. As we move into August, planting wheat will support soil fungi. Later in the month, planting daikon or tillage radish will further support the soil.

Garlic

Harvest begins in July when scapes (slender white pods of bulbils) are ready and leaf tips start to brown off. If browning off occurs in July, it's a sign that your soil is poorly drained. Lift bulbs in poor health and plant oats. As you lift single bulbs, stick in a fava bean. When the rest of the crop is lifted, plant radish, Johnny Jump-up, or Stinkweed.

Beans

Spacing around bush beans is wide enough to try a variety of cover crops. You can stick in a few species of soil builders or food crops as soon as harvest begins in July. It's an opportunity to use up left-over seeds here and there and see if you get a later harvest (avoid big plants like squash). It's also an opportunity to build resources into your soil for next year. If you plan to grown corn in that spot next year, then plant Alfalfa and Buckwheat, or if you plant a root crop, then go with annual grasses like wheat and barley. The beauty of the combinations will surprise and delight you.

Don't forget to cover the bed with leaves in October.

Visit edmonton.ca/compost

 

New Release: City Reports Forecast the Future of Waste in Edmonton

On Thursday, August 29, the City's Utility Committee will discuss five reports about the future of waste management in Edmonton.

Of the five reports, Utility Committee will be asked to do the following:

• Approve proposed changes to single-unit waste set-out
• Endorse the 25-year Waste Strategy

"Through two rounds of public engagement in the past year, Edmontonians expressed passion for waste management in their city and a strong desire to get it right," said Michael Labrecque, Branch Manager, Waste Services. "The 25-year Waste Strategy and accompanying reports chart a clear path forward within a generation."

Below is a summary of what Edmontonians can expect to see debated at Utility Committee:

• 25-year Waste Strategy: Charts a broad course for managing waste and increasing diversion through a variety of actions aligned with a Zero Waste Framework, and ceasing commercial waste collection services.
• Single Unit Waste Set-Out Business Case: Recommends expanding a four-stream collection system (organics, seasonal yard waste, recycling and residual garbage) to all single-unit residences by the end of 2022. It also recommends a rate variability structure (in the range of $5-6 per month) based on the size of black cart selected (120L or 240L), and an Extra Waste Program, which will allow residents to occasionally set out excess waste for a fee.
• Waste Transition Plan: Provides a strategic overview for 2020-2022. The report outlines the priorities for short-term implementation plan of the 25-year Waste Strategy with a focus on waste diversion and reduction programs, citizen and community support, interim organics management, fiscal accountability and more.
• Waste Services Supplemental Capital Budget Adjustment: Recommends that $51.5 million (which already exists in the Capital Budget) be added to the 2019-2022 Waste Services Capital Budget to fund the capital costs of implementing a Source Separated Organics Program, as detailed in the Waste Set-out Business Case.
• Bylaw 18590: Facilitates proposed program changes including the introduction of automated collection and required source separation of waste for residential households. A number of residents who live in multi-unit residences but receive curbside collection (about 27,000 households) will see their rate adjusted to reflect their service type.

To visit the reports, visit edmonton.ca/meetings (under August 29, 2019 - Special Utility Committee).

For more information: visit edmonton.ca/futureofwaste