Toronto Garbage, Recycling and Organics: What Goes Where

The three streams, and what each is for

Garbage is the residual stream: whatever genuinely cannot be recycled or composted. It is also the only stream you pay for by volume, which is the design intent. The City wants food scraps and recyclables out of the garbage bin, and its own guidance notes that a large share of what ends up there could have gone in the Green Bin instead.

The Green Bin takes organic waste, which means food scraps of every kind plus a wider set of items than most people realise. The Blue Bin takes recyclable packaging and paper. Yard waste, oversized items and electronics sit outside the three bins and have their own routes.

What goes in the Green Bin

All food waste belongs in the Green Bin, whether it is fresh, frozen, dried, cooked, prepared or spoiled. That includes vegetable scraps and peels, corn cobs and husks, fruit cores, pits and peels, meat, poultry, fish and shellfish including bones, pasta, bread, grains, cereals, rice and flour, dairy products and eggs including shells, nuts and nutshells, baked goods and desserts.

The accepted list goes well beyond food, and the City’s own list is the authority on it. In practice, the non-food items residents most often overlook are:

• Pet waste, including animal droppings, clay and wood pellet cat litter, and cage bedding.
• Diapers and sanitary products.
• Paper napkins, paper towels and tissues, provided they are not soiled with cleaning chemicals.
• Food-soiled paper plates and takeout containers, and food-soiled pizza boxes, provided they are not waxed or plastic-coated.
• Coffee grounds, filters and tea bags, and house plants with the dirt shaken off.

Why compostable plastics go in the garbage

This is the part of Toronto’s organics programme that surprises people most. Items marketed or labelled as compostable or biodegradable — containers and packaging, coffee pods, coffee cups and cutlery — are not accepted in the Green Bin. They belong in the garbage, or back with a retailer that runs a take-back programme.

The reason is mechanical rather than ideological. Toronto processes Green Bin material by anaerobic digestion, and before material reaches the digesters it passes through a pre-processing stage that removes anything behaving like plastic. Bio-based plastics behave like plastic, so they are stripped out and sent to landfill regardless of what the label claims.

The Blue Bin, and who collects it now

Toronto’s Blue Bin programme has changed hands. Under Ontario’s blue box producer-responsibility regulation, producers of packaging and paper are now financially and operationally responsible for residential recycling. The City states plainly that it does not collect residential recycling, and that household recycling collection and related services — including missed collection and blue bin requests — are handled by Circular Materials.

The City still collects and manages recycling from its commercial customers, its own divisions and agencies, charities, institutions, religious organisations and permitted street events, and its published accepted-materials lists apply to those customers. For a household, the practical consequence is simple: a missed blue bin is not a 311 matter.

• Glass bottles and jars, with lids off.
• Rigid plastic food jars and tubs, clear clamshells, beverage bottles, and detergent, soap and shampoo bottles, with lids, sprayers and pumps left on.
• Flexible plastic packaging: grocery and retail bags, produce and bulk food bags, bread bags, milk bags, frozen vegetable bags, over-wrap, and dry cleaning bags.
• Metal food and beverage cans, aluminium foil, trays, pie plates and roasting pans, cookie tins, and empty aerosol cans.
• Paper and cardboard: newspapers, flyers, magazines, catalogues, advertising mail, boxboard and flattened corrugated cardboard.
• Paper containers such as juice, milk and soup cartons, spiral-wound cans, and paper-based or plastic-lined hot and cold drink cups.
• Foam polystyrene food and protective packaging, provided food and drink packaging is empty and rinsed.

Garbage, and what the bin fee pays for

Solid Waste Management Services is a rate-based programme. Residents pay a fee set by the size of their garbage bin, and the bin programme is mandatory for curbside customers. Sizes run from small to extra-large, and a bag-only option exists only with special approval from the City, in which case a garbage tag must be bought for every bag set out.

The fee is not merely the cost of collecting garbage. It also funds unlimited collection and processing of organics, yard waste, oversized and metal items and electronics, city-wide litter collection, Community Environment Days, street and park bin collection, the drop-off depots, and the perpetual care of closed landfills. Downsizing a bin is free, upsizing attracts a fee, and the bins remain City property when you move.

Oversized items, appliances and the drop-off depots

Oversized items are collected at the curb beside your garbage bin on your regular garbage collection day, and an annual fee for the service is charged to each house and multi-residential unit whether or not it is used. The fee buys convenient pickup with no appointment and no private hauler.

• Accepted at the curb: furniture, mattresses and box springs, lamps, luggage, patio furniture, skis, toilets, appliances, barbecues without propane tanks, bed frames, bicycles, furnaces, hot water heaters and storage sheds.
• Remove the doors from refrigerators, ovens and other appliances before setting them out, and dismantle or separate large heavy items where you can.
• Carpets and underpadding must be rolled, cut and tied into bundles, with a limit on bundle length and weight.
• Not accepted at the curb: construction, demolition and renovation waste, household hazardous waste, and tires.