Saskatoon to ban home composting outside property line

Saskatoon residents will likely have to keep their home composting bins inside their property lines under a proposed organics bylaw.

Home composting is allowed in the city - but the original organics bylaw had no provisions to describe how home composting should be done, according to an administration report.

While some residents compost on private property, others compost in their back lane, which is a public right-of-way.

"The requirement for home composting to be done within the property line or on private property is coming from some of the observations we're seeing where we have composting being done in back lanes and we're starting to see spillover into those lanes," said Angela Gardiner, the city's general manager of utilities and environment.

Administration proposed in the report that a new organics bylaw would specify that home composting must be done inside the property line.

The report says that the old bylaw must be updated to achieve the city's target of 70 per cent waste diversion from the landfill - and because it's been updated so many times and more amendments are needed, administration recommends repealing it and writing a new one.

In its Monday meeting, the Standing Policy Committee on Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services forwarded that recommendation to City Council.

Other changes include mandating proper waste separation for green containers; detailed enclosure and construction standards for bins; and a requirement to contain all sharp or pointed objects.

The new bylaw is expected to be approved by City Council in 2022.