City of Hamilton opens doors to show where your food scraps go

Do you ever wonder what happens to items that get left at the curb for compost pick up?

Well today, the City of Hamilton held an open house at its facility on Burlington Street to show what happens to items you put in your green bin – and actually, in a round about way, comes right back to your dinner plate.

“The main goal is to take resources that can be recycled and put back into the community,” said Joel McCormick, acting manager of waste management.

It’s an opportunity for people to see what happens with their waste after it gets picked up from their homes.

“People put their waste at the curb and then it’s gone. And it goes. And there is a whole other process that takes place for each waste stream,” said McCormick.

At the resource recovery centre on Burlington Street in Hamilton is where items from your green bin get processed. And today the doors were open for the public while the plant was not operating because it’s the weekend.

CHCH News has been there in the past to show what exactly goes into the green bin.

“Your peels, your vegetables. When you’re cutting up vegetables and having cores and pits and any of your food scraps from your dinner or breakfast, lunch. Anything like that that is consumable can go into the green bin and we can process that into compost,” said McCormick.

“I’m curious about what happens to our garbage because we make too much of it,” said one woman.

“Just interest – that we should have more curiosity on what the city does and how our items are picked up because we just take it for granted. You run it to the curb and then you leave it,” said another woman.

Saturday was also an opportunity for people to get up close and personal with some waste management vehicles – and go for a ride.

“We came out here with my husband and my son, and we came to see the garbage trucks today because he is completely obsessed,” said one woman visiting with her family.

You may be surprised to learn what actually happens with the scraps from your green bins.

“Once it comes here, we compost it here. It goes through the entire process where it goes from food waste down to compost. And then that compost is sent to farmers and it’s placed on farmers’ fields like fertilizer,” said McCormick.

So your scraps actually go full circle and back into the food lifecycle.

For more information on all things waste management, including what to recycle and what to throw out, you can head over to the City of Hamilton’s website.

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