A city bylaw requiring condos and apartments to separate compostable items from regular garbage goes into effect on November 1 and some say the program comes with a high cost.

The multi-family food & yard waste program covers condos, apartments, townhouses or any building with five or more units.

Building owners are responsible for:

Providing on-site storage of food and yard waste

Making sure there are enough containers to hold the waste between collection days

Arranging for the collection of the waste or proving another means of diversion

Some condo operators say the service is pricey and that it will cost them about 12 times more than what a single, family homeowner pays.

Residential service costs less because collection is automated and uniform and while commercial routes are more varied they can't just be added to residential routes.

“It doesn't seem like a big deal to add a few more stops to a route but then it becomes a few more and a few more and then 50 to 100 and then we're having difficulty completing the beat and we have to redesign the route and how the work gets done,” said Paula Magdich, Manager City Collection Services.

The city's commercial compost collection rates are equivalent to private companies' rates and even though the city has put out a lot of information about the multi-family compost bylaw, city reps admit that the two-tiered structure of the compost collection services isn't so obvious.

For more information on multi-family food and yard waste for residents, click HERE.