FRUIT AND VEGETABLE STICKERS CONTAMINATE THE COMPOST
District of Summerland challenging local schools with a 'Banana Sticker Bounty' contest

The District of Summerland is challenging local schools with a 'Banana Sticker Bounty' contest. From April 8th to 25th, students in Summerland are being asked to collect fruit and vegetable stickers. For each participating school, the class with the most stickers collected per student wins a pizza party. Plastic lined fruit and vegetable stickers are extremely difficult to remove at compost sites. They end up visibly contaminating finished compost. Other plastics also visibly contaminate the compost.

The District of Summerland just started collecting food scraps at the start of April. All the materials collected will be composted in Summerland and sold to local homes and businesses. Mayor Doug Holmes is hoping the Banana Sticker Bounty contest will be a fun way to help residents understand contamination in their green cart.

"Our message is that food scraps make compost and compost makes food," explains Holmes. "All plastics should be kept out of the green carts or they will contaminate the food we grow for our community."

Fruit and vegetable stickers can be placed in the garbage or kept with other flexible plastic packaging and recycled at recycling depots like the one at the Summerland Landfill. The District of Summerland is also hosting a one-day recycling depot at the Summerland Arena on April 20th that can accept flexible plastic packaging for recycling.

Residents are also asked to keep out the 'Rubber Band-itos' from green onions and broccoli and exclude the Plastic Wrap Perpetrator' wrapped around items like cucumber.

Partial funding for the Banana Sticker Bounty was received from the CleanBC Organics Infrastructure and Collection Program. For more information on what can be composted in Summerland visit www.summerland.ca, e-mail works@summerland.ca or call Summerland Works Office at 250-494-0431.

From left to right: Deputy Mayor Erin Trainer, Councillors Richard Barkwill, Janet Peake, Mayor Doug Holmes, Councillors Adrienne Betts, Martin Van Alphen, Doug Patan.