Compost

Allow me to provide a little background, since many of those reading this don't live in Ottawa.



The city of Ottawa does garbage pick up every week. They also pick up recycling once a week, but it alternates - one week it's blue box (plastics, glass, cans), the next it's the black box (paper).



As well, in the summer they pick up yard waste (i.e. compost materials) every 2 weeks.



There are rules for all of this. Yard waste must be in paper bags (which are sold at Home Depot, Canadian Tire, etc.) or else in a reusable container. Since I'm too lazy (and cheap) to keep buying yard waste bags, I have a large garbage can that I use for yard waste.



The other piece of info that those of you not in Ottawa need to know is that June has been rainy this year. On the 19th, it had rained 16 of the days in June - and it has rained most days since then. Unlike the snow this winter, we're not setting records for rain because it doesn't usually rain much, but it has been raining about once a day all month.



Getting back to the yard waste, since I keep it in a garbage can (and the lid isn't always on the can because there can be branches, etc. sticking out the top) and it has been raining a lot (see? I was going somewhere with this rambling story) it has been known to collect water. That makes it really heavy - not to mention smelly if water has been sitting with decomposing yard waste for 2 weeks.

I'm been meaning to do this for a while, but today I (finally) drilled holes in the bottom of the garbage can so that water will drain out instead of collecting.