Hot summer days and a green cart filled with decomposing waste from your kitchen make a delightful environment for flies and maggots, but for the rest of us, we’d rather avoid this festering breeding ground. Maggot infestations are a common and naturally occurring problem with organic waste collection, but there are steps you can take to help eliminate this wiggly situation.
Jacquie Colangelo, Waste Management’s Queen of Green, says prevention starts in your kitchen. Flies are attracted to protein, so any meat, bones, raw chicken or fish are an inviting place for flies to visit and lay eggs. Therefore, any meat that goes in your green bin should be wrapped or covered. Colangelo recommends wrapping meat scraps in newspaper, wax paper or anything else that is compostable, like a cardboard ice cream tub.
“If you can cover the meat, it will help prevent maggots,” Colangelo says. Another trick is to freeze your meat scraps and then put them in your cart the morning of your scheduled waste pickup. This is especially helpful if you have meat leftovers from Wednesday night’s dinner, but your green bin won’t be emptied until the following Tuesday.
Maintaining your green cart also helps prevent unwanted insects and critters from using your bin as a hotel and take-out restaurant. Keep your cart out of direct sunlight and to try and reduce the amount of heat within your bin. Regularly rinsing out the green cart with the hose will wash away any remaining food waste. Colangelo adds that you don’t need to use any cleaning products when washing the bin. Paper leaf and yard bags can also be used to help contain the compost material.
“You can line your cart with a large leaf and yard bag and put it right in the cart. You can also layer items as you put them into your green cart. You can put a piece of cardboard or newspaper in the bottom, then put your food in, and then top it up with some grass leaves or more newspaper. You just want to keep everything covered,” explains Colangelo.
If you already have maggots in your cart, Colangelo suggests taking your green cart out to the curb, opening the lid, and let the birds feast on the maggots. Since maggots like a moist environment, another trick is to leave the lid open in direct sunlight to dry them out.
For those other pests who like to grab a snack from your green cart, Colangelo recommends storing your cart away from walls, tables, and chairs. These surfaces give your neighborhood raccoons a leg up to climb into the bin. Placing a brick on top of the bin is also a great way to deter critters from opening the lid. Just make sure to take the brick off when you put your green cart at the curb!
For more great tips on preventing maggots and critters from using your green cart, visit
www.hamilton.ca/waste.
