The COVID-19 pandemic has turned many of us into bakers, at-home exercisers, and vegetable growers.
The City of Cornwall is supporting many residents’ newfound passion for growing their own food with two free resources: compost and mulch.
Mulch is available in large piles at Guindon Park and Optimist Park. Visit www.Cornwall.ca/garden to check out the map.
Cornwall residents are welcome to pick up compost at no cost, anytime the landfill is open: Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday, 7:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Be sure to keep your distance from other residents, and bring a shovel and containers! Drive through the scalehouse to access the compost pile.
The compost pile is the result of the City’s leaf and yard waste program. Bags of this waste are placed in a huge pile, which is turned until the waste decomposes into rich, fertile compost.
The fact is, compost is great for your garden, and not useful for our landfill. The leaf, branch and yard waste program is an excellent opportunity to keep re-usable material out of our landfill.
I’m asked this question a lot: Isn’t compost good for the landfill? Don’t we need it to help waste decompose?
The short answer is no. Here’s the long answer, too:
Placing organics in a landfill creates pollution in the form of methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas, which has a global warming potential 104 times greater than CO2 (carbon dioxide). Plus, when organics are placed in plastic bags, the bags take hundreds of years to break down. Finally, separating organics from waste creates the opportunity to make new resources like fertilizer.
You can learn all about the City of Cornwall’s waste programs at www.Cornwall.ca/waste.
