Halifax Garbage, Recycling and Organics: What Goes Where

The three streams, and who gets curbside collection

Curbside collection is available to residential properties with six units or less, including single-family homes and smaller multi-unit buildings. Larger apartment buildings do not receive curbside collection, and waste management there is the landlord’s responsibility.

Businesses, including restaurants, apartment buildings and institutions, are required to have sorting programmes and commercial containers for blue bag recyclables, paper and cardboard, organic materials, and garbage.

The green cart: organics, food waste and yard material

Green carts are collected curbside every second week, along with leaf and yard material. The maximum allowed weight for a green cart is 100 kilograms, and Halifax suggests using paper yard waste bags for any excess rather than overfilling the cart.

The green cart takes food, not packaging. Anything plastic is excluded, including bags and packaging labelled biodegradable or compostable. Halifax’s position is that these materials may break down in a laboratory setting but have not been proven in a municipal compost system, and that drink cups and single-use bowls are lined with plastic which remains present in microscopic pieces after the lining breaks down.

Leaf and yard material goes out on the same cycle, either in the cart or in large paper leaf and yard waste bags. Halifax allows up to 20 bags at 25 kilograms each per green cart collection day. Branches must be tied in armload-sized bundles, with a maximum of five bundles each collection day; no bundle may exceed 34 kilograms, and no individual piece may be more than four feet long or larger than eight inches in diameter.

• Accepted: all food scraps, fruit and vegetable peelings, table scraps, meat, fish and bones, dairy products, fat, cooking oil and grease, bread, rice and pasta, coffee grounds, filters and tea bags, eggshells, food napkins, kitchen paper towels and soiled paper, wooden cutlery that is 100 per cent wood with no coating, and paper plates with no plastic coating.
• Not accepted: plastic bags and anything labelled compostable or biodegradable, paper and foam coffee cups, ashes, waxed or film packaging, corrugated cardboard such as pizza boxes, cans, bottles and glass, decorations and wire wreaths, milk containers, pet or animal waste, soil, sods, rocks, logs and tree trunks, grass clippings, and invasive species.
• Leaf and yard material: leaves and brush, house and garden plant waste, and sawdust and wood shavings. Grass clippings are not collected curbside.
• Natural Christmas trees are collected on your regular green cart collection day, with all wires, nails and stands removed and the tree not bagged.

Recycling: the blue bag system

Nova Scotia moved to an extended producer responsibility model for packaging and paper on 1 December 2025, shifting the physical and financial responsibility for recycling onto the businesses that supply the materials. Halifax Regional Municipality opted into the programme: it continues to manage residential curbside recycling collection and has stepped back from operating the recycling facility. Circular Materials is the producer responsibility organisation, and Divert NS is the provincial oversight body.

For residents, the visible change is a standardised list of accepted materials, so the same items can be recycled anywhere in the province. The familiar dual-stream blue bag system continues.

• Newly accepted in curbside container recycling: multi-layer paper containers such as paper cups including hot and cold beverage cups, ice cream cartons and spiral cans for cookie dough, frozen juice, chips and coffee; plastic tubes for toothpaste, deodorant and hand cream; and small-item plastic packaging such as bottles and pumps, candy and gum containers, pails, garden pots and seedling trays.
• No longer accepted curbside: books, which can be donated to community library boxes or thrift shops, and pots and pans, which can be donated or taken to a scrap metal depot. If neither option is possible, they may go in the garbage.
• Depot-only, not curbside: non-hazardous aerosols such as hairspray and shaving cream, flexible plastics such as coffee pouches, chip bags and cereal liner bags, and foam packaging. These are collected at participating Enviro-Depots.
• Apartment buildings with seven or more units, schools and campgrounds must register with Circular Materials for recycling collection.

Garbage, bulky waste and what cannot go in a bag

Garbage is what is neither recyclable nor organic. Sorting the stream correctly means some surprising items are acceptable and others are firmly excluded.

• Acceptable as garbage: plastics labelled compostable or biodegradable, diapers, pet waste and dog waste bags, cat litter including clay, crystals, wood pellets and paper pellets, cage liners and bedding. Styrofoam, chip bags, candy wrappers, wax paper, non-container plastics and empty non-hazardous aerosols are garbage if disposed of curbside. Broken glass must go in a box labelled broken glass.
• Not acceptable as garbage: paper and container recycling, food waste, household special waste such as paint, corrosive cleaners, pesticides, herbicides, gasoline, motor oil, solvents, thinners, medications, aerosols and small propane or butane containers, plus batteries, electronics and tires. Each has its own return or drop-off route.
• Bulky waste: single-unit homes may put out one bulky item each garbage collection day, and multi-unit dwellings of up to six units may put out two in total. The weight limit for a bulky item is 200 kilograms, and some bulky items are collected by a separate truck, so collection times vary.

The Household Special Waste depot

The Household Special Waste drop-off depot is operated by a certified contractor and accepts chemical waste generated in your home. Although it sits on the same property as the recycling facility, it is a fully separate operation, located at 20 Horseshoe Lake Drive in Bayers Lake.

It is open only on scheduled Saturdays, when trained and certified personnel are present to accept material safely. When recycling collection is rescheduled to a Saturday because of a holiday or bad weather, the depot is closed. The permanent depot cannot accommodate walk-ups.

Collection days and how to check them

Collection can start as early as 7 a.m. and may not happen at the same time each week. Carts can be placed curbside as early as 7 p.m. the night before, and any cart not collected must be removed from the curb by 9 p.m. on the day of collection.

Green carts and mini-bins are supplied by the municipality to properties that receive curbside collection. Carts are assigned to the property rather than the owner, so they stay behind when you move. Cart delivery for new homes, repairs, and one free replacement mini-bin per civic address are handled through 311 or a Customer Service Centre.

• Use the What Goes Where search, also called the Waste Wizard, to check any item.
• Sign up for weekly reminders and service alerts, or print a calendar customised for your address.
• Download the free Halifax Recycles app, or call 311, to have a collection schedule mailed or to report a problem.