City opens new compost depot site this year, 3 locations to serve Steinbach

Steinbach residents will have another option this year for dropping off compostable material as the city opens a third depot site. 

Solid Waste Manager Eldon Wallman says the additional cost is being covered by a provincial grant. 

The city decided the new location should be further north. We can find the compost bin every Saturday in the parking lot of Smith Neufeld Jodoin. 

“It should be good,” Wallman says. “It’s a good part of our city where we haven’t really got a lot of exposure with the other two bins that we have. So, I think we are covering a lot of good territory there with this third location.” 

The other two bins will return to previous locations at Woodlawn Elementary and Stonybrook Middle School. 

These three depots will operate every Saturday beginning May 6th. 

When the weather is right, there is constant traffic at these depots and the bins are emptied multiple times a day. 

Wallman is encouraged by the amount of compostable material that is diverted from the landfill to the compost pile. 

“If you put anything organic into the landfill site, like food waste and grass clippings, things like that, it ultimately creates greenhouse gases, which is a real bad word these days,” he says. “Greenhouse gases, we try to get rid of as much of that as possible. Organic waste in landfills produce about 24-percent of all greenhouse gases across Canada. So, it’s a pretty substantial amount that comes into the landfill and we want to eliminate as much of that as possible.” 

The city picked up 90 metric tonnes last year through its compost program, down slightly from 2021 which was reported as a banner year. 

Compost waste piles are turned throughout the year until a rich product is ready to go back into the ground. Each year, weather permitting, residents are given free access to compost. 

The rainy summer and fall last year prevented the compost from being screened so Wallman is hopeful Mother Nature will co-operate this spring so they can move the compost off the property and make space for new compost piles.