With fall yard clean-up in full swing, the head of solid waste for the City of Steinbach is reminding residents to compost if possible.

Eldon Wallman says, in general, this year they have collected a very large volume of compostable material.

"Last year there were drought conditions so there was a lot less grass, so our tonnage goes down. This year was really good, it is up substantially over the year before. Lots of leaves, lots of garden waste and stuff like that and that is perfect, that is exactly what we want."

During fall the City of Steinbach runs compost depots every Saturday at the Woodlawn and Stonybrook Middle School parking lots. Wallman says more and more people seem to be taking advantage of these depots.

"This is the biggest pile of leaves that I have ever seen here in fall. It is really catching on and it is good to see that the public is noticing the right thing to do with compost. The compost bins at the school parking lots there on Saturdays, we actually empty them two or three times each, there is quite a lot of volume coming through."

Instead of using plastic bags, Wallman reminds residents to bring their leaves in paper yard waste bags.

"That is the ideal way to bring stuff to the depot because we really like the paper products in there. Those are the carbons that we add to our compost and that creates a really good mix that we give back to the public at the end of the year."

Meanwhile, any yard waste left at the curb or brought to the dump in plastic bags will be thrown into the landfill and not composted.

Wallman notes the last Steinbach compost depots of the season will be held the weekend after Thanksgiving, and the dump hours will be changing soon as well.

"We are still working on our summer hours here so we are open until eight in the evening from Monday to Friday and until six on Saturday but on October 13t, we will change to our winter hours so we won't be open evenings anymore."