Cochranites, can you dig it?

To help press home the value of Cochrane's new household organic collection program, residents are being invited to pick up 20kg of compost this Saturday, Apr. 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the lagoon site, located just past the SLS Family Sports Centre. All you need to bring are bags or pails--shovels will be provided.

The free compost event follows the first week of the curbside collection program and Fabrizio Bertolo, Cochrane's manager of Waste and Recycling, is pleased with the response.

The town has been monitoring bin usage and Bertolo estimates already 70 per cent are being put on curbside.

"We have two people going out every day checking hundreds of carts and checking the content and leaving tags with recommendations in case we find something that is not correct," he says."They've also noticed some full carts have not been left on the curb and suspect it's a matter of time before people get use to the collection days."

Even if some of the bins contain items that don't fit the bill, they are being collected.

"We still collect everything; we don't leave any cart behind but we are giving lists of recommendations to residents in order to improve the quality of our organics," he explains.

Bertolo did review the first load collected and gives it the thumbs up.

There is a little confusion about the use of biodegradeable bags.

"We're only accepted certified compostable bags in our program," he says. "Some people are confused about this and it's going to take awhile, but 99 per cent are doing just great."

They do recommend using a liner of some sort, whether it be a compostable bag, paper bag or newsprint, to prevent the cart from beginning to stink or becoming dirty.

Compostable bags, though, are always required for excrement.

"If you want to put your poop in the green bin it's fine, but you need to use composable bags, that's the only requirement," says Bertolo.