Green Cart Program

Use your Green Cart for yard and food waste. Use the Waste Wizard tool to find out what goes in your green cart or browse through the list of acceptable items.

• The City provides a Green Cart as part of the annual fee.
• The City collects Green Carts every two weeks from May 3 to November 7 on your scheduled collection day.
• All Green Carts are collected from the front curb, even if your Blue and Black Carts are collected in the back lane.

• Place your yard and food waste loose into your Green Cart (no plastic or bagged items).
• Ensure the cart is placed out for collection prior to 7 a.m. on your scheduled pickup day.
• Ensure there is at least 1.2 meters (4 feet) of clearance around all sides of the cart.
• Between collections, store your Green Cart in a secure, shaded location on your property.

• Please do not write your address on your Green Cart. Your cart may be used at another location if you choose not to register for the program in the future.

Here are some simple tips to properly and easily dispose of your yard and food waste.

Indoors:

• Collect food waste in a small container with a lid. Store it inside a cupboard, underneath your sink, or outside your backdoor. Ensure the lid is fully closed.
• Line your container with newspaper or a paper bag, or simply wrap food in a napkin. Please do not use waxed, plastic, plastic-lined, compostable, or biodegrable bags.
• Drain excess liquids from your food waste before placing in the container.
• Freeze smelly food waste until collection day.
• Empty the contents of your container into your Green Cart as frequently as necessary.
• Rinse your container after emptying it into your Green Cart.
• Sprinkle baking soda in the bottom of your container to reduce odours and deter insects.
• Catch fruit flies in a bowl of vinegar covered with plastic wrap, pricked with a few holes.

Outdoors:

• Set your cart out for every collection, even if it isn't full.
• Store your Green Cart outside in a shady, flat, and ventilated location.
• Keep the lid fully closed.
• Line your cart with newsprint, cardboard, or yard waste before adding food waste.
• Covering food waste with yard waste will help prevent odours and insects. Keep the contents of your cart dry by alternating a layer of food waste with a layer of dried leaves, grass clippings, or dead plants.
• Let leaves, grass, and yard waste dry out first before placing them into your cart.
• Rinse your bin occasionally with a garden hose. Pour contents onto grass or gravel (not down the storm drain).
• Sprinkle a small amount of vinegar or baking soda into your Green Cart to reduce odour.
• If animals chew on the bin, rub peppermint oil, hot sauce, cayenne, or chili powder on the chewed spot to deter other animals.

Odours are produced when materials are too wet and/or don’t have enough access to oxygen. Pests, such as insects, are attracted to food waste, so keeping these materials covered and enclosed is very important.

Reducing Food Waste Odour Indoors:

• Put your food waste in a small container with a lid.
• Drain liquids from your food waste before putting it in your kitchen container.
• Line your kitchen container with newspaper or wrap food in a napkin to reduce moisture.
• Consider freezing food waste until the day before your Green Cart is collected.

Reducing Odours and Pests in Your Green Cart:

• Keep the contents of your cart dry by alternating a layer of food waste with a layer of dried leaves, grass clippings, or dead plants.
• Keep food waste covered with yard waste.
• Let leaves, grass and yard waste dry out first before placing them into your cart (consider storing yard waste in a dry area of your yard between collection days).
• Store your green cart in a shady, flat and ventilated location. Keep the lid fully closed.
• Rinse your green cart occasionally with a garden hose. Pour contents onto your grass or gravel (never down the storm drain). Sprinkle a small amount of vinegar or baking soda into your green cart to reduce odour.
• Place the correct materials in your cart.
• Set out your green cart for every collection, even if it is not full. This will prevent the build-up of material and could help prevent moisture and odours.
• Make sure there are no holes in your Green Cart.

If your Green Cart is filling up before collection day, try following these simple tips:

Tips to reduce yard waste:

• Leave grass clippings on your lawn after mowing, also known as “grasscycling.”
• Work leaves directly into your garden soil or use them as mulch on your garden beds.
• Take excess yard waste to one of the City's compost depots free of charge.
• Compost excess yard waste using a backyard composting system.

Tips to reduce food waste:

• Get creative – look for recipes that use foods you already have on hand.
• Shop smart – don’t buy more food than you can eat before it starts to spoil.
• Store foods correctly so they last longer.
• Look in your fridge, freezer and pantry before grocery shopping so you only buy what you need.
• Create an “Almost Expired” section in your fridge and pantry to store items that have to be used quickly. Start your meal planning by looking through these items.
• Freeze foods for later use.
• Keep track of what you throw away to get an idea of how much food you could be saving.
• Compost excess food waste at home, by using a backyard or indoor composting system.

Green Cart still filling up before collection day? Order a second cart for an additional subscription fee.

Here are some tips to prevent and deal with contents that may have become stuck or frozen in your Green Cart.

• Line your cart with crumpled up newspaper, paper bags, or soiled pizza boxes.
• Put grass clippings in paper yard waste bags.
• Layer wet organics (food waste, grass clippings) with dry organics (leaves, newspaper, soiled pizza boxes).
• Strain excess liquid from soups and sauces with a strainer and only place the solid pieces in the cart.
• Wrap food with high moisture content in soiled boxes or newspapers.
• Don't force the contents of the cart down.
• Use the end of a broomstick to stir and loosen up material at the bottom of the cart.
• If possible, give you cart a shake prior to rolling it out to dislodge any frozen contents.
• If you choose to use your Green Cart during the winter, consider leaving your food waste in another container to allow it to freeze before putting it in your Green Cart.

Yard and food waste aren’t garbage – they’re a plant’s best friend!

When these materials are composted, the end product (compost) can be added to lawns, flowerbeds, vegetable gardens, and house plants to add nutrients to the soil, conserve water, and reduce weeds, pests and diseases.

What happens to the yard and food waste I put in my Green Cart?

Compost from your Green Cart has been used to keep Saskatoon parks, community gardens, and other public green spaces healthy and beautiful. As more compost is generated, more uses and opportunities to sell the material will become possible.

What are “organics”? And what percentage of my waste do they represent?

Organics are materials that break down naturally and can be turned into compost, such as yard and food waste. Options such as the Green Cart program and backyard composting allow residents to separate their organics from their garbage so these materials can be composted.

Approx. 40-50% of a household’s waste is organic. In fact, more than 15 million pounds of food is wasted in Canadian households each year, while approx. 40% of the food produced in North America is never consumed. In addition, yard waste, such as leaves, grass, and garden materials, can represent up to twice as much waste as food waste. If every household in Saskatoon composted their organics, it would divert more than 25,000 tonnes of organic material from the landfill.

Why is it important to divert yard and food waste from the landfill?

Composting is recycling too! And yet, most of our yard and food waste is being put into the garbage.

When these materials end up in the landfill, they are mixed with garbage and quickly buried in an airless environment. But because organics need air to decompose properly, they do not turn into soil or compost. Instead, they release methane gas and create garbage fluids, called leachate. Methane is a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide and leachate needs to be managed under strict environmental regulations. Although some of the methane is captured as landfill gas and converted into energy, the system at our landfill only captures approx. 70% of the methane produced by 1/3 of the landfill, while the remainder is released into our atmosphere.

By placing items that are not garbage into the landfill, we fill it up unnecessarily. A new landfill would be very expensive to build and operate, challenging to locate, and would have a large environmental impact. To prevent the need for a new landfill, we all need to do our part to put waste in the right place.

Did you know? Some organic materials sent to the landfill can still be identified decades after disposal because they don’t break down properly.