Icky Green Bins and Your Health

Many communities in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have finally begun to adopt the green composting bin initiative which has been great for decreasing the amount of food waste which has needlessly been shipped off to the landfill sites.

As wonderful and easy as the program is, I have to tell you. I have beef with it.

The Green Bin Program is designed to collect organic household waste and turn it into compost to be resold. Basically, the program requires that anything biodegrade-able be placed in the specified bin which is then put out a the road weekly for collection. Acceptable items for the bin include things like: table scraps (meats, bones, cheeses as well - which are items typically discouraged from being added to your backyard composter), popcorn bags, paper towel, coffee cups, filters and grounds, tea bags, and more.

Sounds fabulous doesn't it? Well, it is!! The amount of landfill garbage for collection day is decreased considerably to the point where they only pick up every other week in our area, while green bin collection is once a week.

But those food stuffs? They sit out for an entire week before pick up. Not unlike before when they rotted in the regular garbage bags, I know; but In the summer months the bin can become a breeding ground for some SERIOUS illness. Every site that I've been to has down played this fact saying that these bins are perfectly safe and not unlike your regular garbage.

I agree with that. Regular garbage is disgusting as well.

It's really important people remember to wash their hands after touching the bins and always before preparing food.

WASH YOUR HANDS. That's it? That's all the protection advice that's offered? Every site says that the bins are completely sanitary and not unlike regular garbage. I just can't see how it's the same. It's a bin FULL of decomposing, rotting food which can lead to illnesses like E. coli, salmonella and listeria.

I suspect that the communities are down playing the dangers of the bins in order to encourage their use, but I worry that their nonchalant attitude towards them causes people to be careless about their use. Some cleaning services have cropped up around the GTA offering to sanitize the green bins for a fee for which they have been accused of fear mongering to drum up business. My personal opinion is the companies are simply offering a service to those realists, like myself, which feel that the bins are not as sanitary as city councils claim them to be.

I am a green bin user and will continue to be, but I am VERY careful about letting the children touch the bin and HAND WASHING constantly after coming in contact with the bin. I wash our kitchen bin weekly and will more than likely pressure wash the other bin now that it's warmer out. Maybe even have a company come and sanitize it a couple times over the summer.

Also? Only now are they rolling out the program in condominiums, apartment and townhouse complexes. It's still in the testing phase for these high occupancy housing areas, which, I'm sorry but is completely ludicrous. Of all the areas which need a program like this, it's these homes.

So ya, overall I think it's a fabulous idea but as with all new inicitives, there bumps to be worked out.

Are you using a green bin program in your area? What have you done to protect you and your family from their digustingness?

Sam posts regularly at Temporarily Me as well as Craftastrophe: Because handmade isn't always pretty!

Comments

[Lesley]

We're getting these in Ottawa soon and a friend and I came up with a simple solution. We purchased biodegradable dog poop bags. The plan is to keep the food scraps in one (or more) of these bags in the freezer until the morning of the pickup. I put my garbage and recycling out in the morning anyway - it keeps animals and vandals out of it. This way there's no smell and no health hazard. Obviously you could use plastic bags but that defeats the purpose of composting food scraps. This wouldn't work for someone without freezer space but for those of us who have one it's a simple and clean solution. I also intend to start composting vegetable matter this summer to reduce the amount of stuff which will need to go in the green bin.

[angelina]

I definitely think washing one's hands with soap and water is enough. It isn't as though those germs you're speaking of are airborne- you have to touch them directly and ingest them. So yes, washing hands should be enough for most grossness in the world.

And it shouldn't be antibacterial soaps either. Just plain soap and water.

I compost my own stuff in my own yard so the disgustingness stays permanently close to me and my family but I'm not afraid of it. I also come in contact with my own chickens and have to clean their feces up and put it in my compost.

My golden rule is to always always wash my hands. The only time I go to greater lengths of safety is that I change my clothes if I've been mucking out the chicken run and clean my hands up to my elbows really well.

But if you are freaked by the decomposing of the food you previously had on your kitchen counters you should certainly do whatever you need to to feel more comfortable.

[angelina]

Darn it, I'm sorry. I sounded like a real jerk in my comment and I really didn't mean to. My apologies! I think it's a great question to have posed. Just wanted to chime in.

[John]

But what about the animals that eat this stuff - does not seem good to me

[Tanya]

You are supposed to use plastic bags inside the green bin. There is no point in Toronto of buying biodegradable bags because the city has expensive machinery which cuts off and sends to landfill the plastic before it has a chance to compost.