Curbside Organics

Morning Ben, as per the news brief from the Regional District, the collected organics will be stockpiled at the Fernie Transfer Station and the Cranbrook Central Receiving Facility until the Sparwood site is ready. The organics will not be disposed of at the Central Facility, only stored. You can read more about the plan here.

Hello Angelika, the short answer is, "It depends". Any paper-based liner like a 2-ply lawn and yard waste bag, are acceptable. Any compostable liner bags that are or look like plastic are not accepted.  

Hi Joanne, thank you for your comments. Using one of the City’s Bear Resistant Dumpsters, located at the Max Turyk Centre, the Fernie Aquatic Centre or at City Hall is a great way to be wildlife conscious if you do not have a suitable storage location for your wildlife attractants. The Fernie Transfer Station is also a great drop off location for household waste, and the site offers a number of other opportunities for recycling and reuse. Also, curbside collection of organics will be once per week, not every two weeks, so there will be less time for waste to become an attractant.

With this new program, Staff were directed by Council to provide a higher-quality curbside bin, to prevent wildlife interactions. The curbside cart is certified Bear Resistant (for one hour) by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. From their website, the Committee began providing guidance and direction relative to bear-resistant containers in the 1980s with a goal of ensuring effective storage of attractants and minimizing human/grizzly bear conflicts. The testing program is a partnership with the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center and the Washington State University Bear Center, which conduct the live testing with grizzly bears in West Yellowstone, Montana, and Pullman, Washington, respectively. Products must meet specific criteria, and either “pass” a live bear test using captive grizzly bears or a technical evaluation in order to appear on the list. More information can be found at igbconline.org.

This new service is the first step towards the City’s goal of redirecting all organics from the landfill, and was partially funded by a grant specifically for curbside collection. Discussions occurred with Council as the program was shaped back in November of 2023 on how collection should occur – curbside bins or community bins. The full report from Staff can be read in the Council agenda here.

Hi Shan, please call City Hall, 250-423-6817 for repairs or replacement. They will coordinate repairs on all curbside carts - garbage, recycling and organics. 

Hi Heather, there are some options you could look into:

- Encourage your site management to organize organics collection

- Find a neighbour that does have curbside organics, and work on a plan together to be "adopted" by them, in order to share their curbside bin. 

- Keep an eye on the RDEK's Organic Initiative website to see when they might organize drop off locations for kitchen scraps. The Fernie Transfer Station accepts yard and garden waste, which will go to the organics processing facility. 

Hi there, the Fernie Mobile Home Park is a strata, and is not a part of the City's curbside collection program. The Park does have curbside waste and recycling bins, but the program is run by the Park, not the City. I would suggest speaking to the management of the Park to ask them to implement a collection system for organics. 

Hi there, thank you for your comment. Yes, using the 24-7 dumpsters at the Max Turyk Centre, the Aquatic Centre or City Hall is a good option if you don't have a safe space to store garbage. The Fernie Transfer Station is also a good option, plus you can drop off a ton of recycling that doesn't go in your curbside bin. 

One thing to remember about the 24-7 dumpsters is that they are bear-resistant, but only for the garbage that makes it into the dumpster. If a bin is full please go to another bin or the transfer station. Do not leave garbage beside full dumpsters. It creates an animal attractant and is in contravention of our Waste Regulation Bylaw.

No, please keep compostable and biodegradable plastics out of the organics cart. They do not break down completely at our local facility and create challenges. Instead, you can use things like paper bags, paper coffee filters or old newspaper to line your kitchen catcher bin.

In 2024, your monthly costs for curbside service (the collection of garbage, recycling, and soon organics) will not change. In 2025, as can be seen in Schedule A of the Waste Regulation Bylaw , the monthly cost per household for garbage, recycling and organics is $17.40.  In order to make the costs reasonable for all households, all Fernie curbside collection customers pay for all three streams of collection. 

Good eye to notice that there is a change on the map for the Alpine Trails and Parkland Terrace neighbourhoods. There is a big changecoming to those areas, but just not yet. 

To accommodate our growing City, the boundaries of Area 1 and 2 have shifted to include Alpine Trails and Parkland Terrace neighborhoods to Area 1 collection days. These neighbourhoods will be part of Area 1 starting with the first organics collection on September 23rd. 

This is noted on the calendar section of the guidebook and the curbside sorting guide. So until the fourth week of September, Alpine Trails and Parkland will stay with Area 2. Starting September 23rd, they will be a part of Area 1.