By Dominic Abassi

‘The most bizarre:’ City finds piece of animal carcass in green bin

Nov 14, 2018 | 1:55 PM

NANAIMO — The City of Nanaimo’s green bins can take anything from beans to bones — as long as those bones didn’t come from wild game.

The City posted perhaps one of its most bizarre messages on social media on Monday, reminding people “animal carcasses are not acceptable in the green cart for composting.”

David Thompson, the City’s manager of sanitation and recycling, said what appeared to be a large deer hip or shoulder was found in a load of organics last week.

“Clearly it was from a hunting operation. That’s way above and outside what we’d expect in the green bin. Anything that is generated from your kitchen scraps, turkey bones or chicken carcasses and things like that, certainly that can be easily handled. But when it comes to bigger animals there are other methods that are more suitable.”

Thompson said the cotton bag holding the animal carcass was about three-feet long and one-and-a-half feet wide, filled with large bones and chunks of meat.

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He said they regularly screen loads of organics and have found unacceptable items like diaper bags, road kill and dead crows before.

“I’d definitely suggest this is the most bizarre though,” Thompson said.

Since the City began accepting yard and garden waste in the green bins, Thompson said there’s been a big increase in the volume the processing plant is handling.

“It’s designed for kitchen scraps and yard and garden waste. To the point where we can’t even take in branches, so it is quite small scale.”

He said the unusual social media post “raised some flags” with the City’s communications department and clearly struck a chord with Nanaimo residents.

“We spent most of Tuesday clarifying that kitchen scraps, meat, fat, small bones are completely acceptable. But if you get outside that realm things need to be dealt with differently.”

The BC Conservation Officer Service said unused animal remains should be taken to a rendering operation for disposal or returned to the woods in areas where people don’t commonly recreate.

dom@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @domabassi