As environmental stewardship becomes more popular, many businesses and people are increasingly using biodegradable materials in their operations: envelopes, shopping bags, water bottles, hard shell food containers, etc., often paying more but hoping that in the longer term their investment and efforts will pay off in terms of health,pollution, GHG’s, etc.

What is the City of Ottawa doing with them? I phoned 311 to ask and was told to throw them in the garbage! The City is not composting or recycling them. Incredulous I asked them to take me to their web site pages where they say that. They don’t: http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/garbage-and-recycling/recycling/what-goes-....

So I asked them to do it and come clean with the citizens of Ottawa.

The request number is 20130052.5577 and they promised that someone
from the solid waste dept would get back to me within 2 days. How long before the web site is updated? They said approximately one month.

Of course, what they should be doing is treat all those items the way they are intended to: compost them! Are we wasting our money?

Should we stop using these materials in Ottawa?