It’s been closed for seven months and completely cleaned out, but the City of Hamilton’s troubled Central Composting Facility was back in action today.

There were so many complaints about the smell the city closed it down in June and emptied it out.

“Every piece of material was removed from this facility and completely power sprayed and cleaned from top to bottom.” Joel McCormick, Manger of waste collections.

At least 19 trucks will be dropping off green bin material at the compost facility, and to combat the smell it will be processing about a third of what it was doing before.

“In the past we were processing organic matter from Hamilton and other municipalities, so moving forward we’re only going to be processing material from the city of Hamilton.”

There are a number of proposed improvements for the facility, including an acid scrubber which will help remove ammonia from the processing, and a carbon filtration system.

If they are approved and implemented the facility’s capacity will be increased to about 40,000 tonnes annually, still well below the 60,000 it was at last year.

As of April 1st, the city will no longer accept grass clippings and leaves in the green bins. You will now have to put that stuff in a brown yard waste bag.