Food Waste is generated by Hotels, Schools, Restaurants, large and small companies and is a primary example of how a recycling program can drastically reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. Turtle Island processes over 100,000 lbs of organic waste daily, and recovers the materials from all avenues of business.

In a landfill, organic items do not break down and are expensive and messy to dump. Food recycling keeps the organic waste out of the regular garbage and contains it in special “Kitchen Catchers” (green compost pails) in kitchenettes and then in 32 gallon totes with liners on the loading docks. Turtle Island ensures that all health and safety requirements are met in this service and we provide regularly steam-cleaned and sanitized bins in exchange for the full containers.

Organic material is sent to a licensed composting facility. The facility used by Turtle Island Recycling utilizes windrow composting. This process consists of simply placing the organic material in long narrow piles and allowing the material to be digested naturally by the resident bacteria. Placing the material in thin rows rather than large piles allows for passive aeration of the material and aerobic digestion, taking approximately 18 months for completion. Keeping this waste from regular garbage helps control unwanted pests, odours, and greatly saves on disposal costs. The waste is composted into a nutrient-rich soil.

The windrow composting process used by Turtle Island Recycling is also very environmentally benign due to the natural aerobic composting method employed compared to anaerobic.

In the case of a large shipment of organic food still in its packaging such as cans or plastic containers, Turtle Island has industrial shredders which will separate the contents from the packaging and recycle both materials.

See the Product Destruction area of the website for further details on the depackaging process.

Our partner in this service, Canada Composting Inc., is able to take a wide variety of organic material with up to 20% non-organic contamination which makes them a popular choice in user-friendly recycling programs. They will accept all fruits and vegetables; All bakery and dairy waste; All meat, poultry and seafood; All frozen food; All out-of-date food; all coffee grinds, filter papers and tea bags; All flowers and plants as well as all fibre waste not otherwise recycled including Cardboard (waxed and non-waxed); Napkins, paper towels and tissues; All types of paper, newspapers and magazines.

In the case of a large shipment of organic food still in its packaging such as cans or plastic containers, Turtle Island has industrial shredders which will separate the contents from the packaging and recycle both materials. See the Product Destruction (link) area of the website for further details on the depackaging process.