A pickup load of prunings weighing up to 100 kilograms costs $8 at the scale house at 860 Church Road, just outside the southwestern edge of Parksville. Above 100 kilograms the Regional District of Nanaimo charges $60 a tonne. The same load mixed with household garbage would be weighed at the garbage rate of $160 a tonne, and wood waste such as lumber at $275. Those numbers, from the RDN's tipping fee table in effect since April 1, 2026, explain most of what there is to know about yard waste removal in the region: sort it, keep it clean, and it is the cheapest thing you can bring.
The Church Road Transfer Station is one of two public drop-off sites the RDN owns and operates. The other is the Regional Landfill at 1105 Cedar Road, near the southern border of the City of Nanaimo. Between them sit two different curbside programs, one run by the RDN and one by the City, with different rules for what goes in the cart.
Two sites, one fee table: Church Road and Cedar Road
The RDN describes the Regional Landfill as the only landfill in the region, receiving more than 58,000 tonnes of waste a year. The Church Road Transfer Station takes in more than 19,000 tonnes a year, which is trucked on to Cedar Road for disposal. Both sites, the RDN says, serve more than 160,000 people.
Not everything that arrives goes into the ground. Both facilities have areas for recyclable materials, including garden waste and scrap metal, and together they divert more than 11,000 tonnes of recyclables a year, "comprised mainly of yard waste," in the RDN's words. Yard waste is, by weight, the largest material the two sites keep out of the ground.
Church Road is busy. An RDN service alert from August 2022 put the average at 300 to 350 vehicles a day, counting commercial haulers, curbside trucks and residents. That alert also gives a rare look at the layout: while a transfer building was being repaired from August 6 to 14 that year, yard waste was moved next to the recycling area, into the space normally used for shingles. The alert covered a single week, but it is a reminder that staff direct traffic on site and drop-off points can move.
Both sites list the same hours as of October 2026: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week, closed on provincial and federal statutory holidays except Easter Monday. They take debit, credit and cash. The RDN's hours page still carries pandemic-era notes about distancing and priority for commercial traffic, so the call-ahead numbers are worth keeping: 250-248-5254 for Church Road and 250-722-2044 for the landfill.
What the fee table actually charges for yard waste
The fee schedule comes from the RDN's Tipping Fee and Solid Waste Disposal Regulation Bylaw No. 1784, and the website lists a selection of rates "for convenience purposes only." For a householder the relevant lines are short.
Yard waste, including invasive plant species, is charged an $8 flat fee up to 100 kilograms, then $60 a tonne. Most other materials switch from the flat fee to tonnage at 50 kilograms; metal switches at 500. A $25 surcharge applies to an unsecured load, which matters for a trailer heaped with loose clippings. Food waste and gypsum are accepted only at Church Road.
The wording "including invasive plant species" is worth noticing. It means a load of Scotch broom or blackberry canes pays the yard waste rate rather than the garbage rate, which removes one reason to dump it in a ditch. RDN bylaw enforcement takes reports of dump sites around the region at 250-390-6559.
The RDN organics cart since 2023
For households outside the City of Nanaimo, the cart is now the first option. On March 1, 2023, the RDN's curbside organics program began taking yard and garden material in Electoral Areas A, B, C, E, F, G and H, the District of Lantzville, the City of Parksville and the Town of Qualicum Beach. Its broader curbside service also covers Snaw-Naw-As First Nation.
The rules are specific. Residents can top up the 100-litre organics cart with leaves, grass trimmings and light yard trimmings, meaning twigs, small branches and prunings less than 1.5 centimetres in diameter and no longer than 60 centimetres. The lid must close fully. The RDN said the expansion cost households about $2 a year, a one per cent increase in the curbside utility fee in 2023 and again in 2024, made possible in part by a CleanBC organics grant and contracts with Waste Connections Canada and the composter Convertus.
"The collection and conversion of leaves, grass and light yard trimmings into compost throughout the region supports both a circular economy and helps the RDN get closer to its 90 per cent waste diversion goal," said Vanessa Craig, the RDN chair, in the 2023 announcement. The RDN also expected fewer trips to Church Road and the landfill, and less backyard burning.
A 100-litre cart fills quickly in October. The RDN now lets customers exchange it for a 240-litre cart for an extra $50 a year, or keep it and add a second 240-litre cart for $70 a year, with a $75 administration fee on the exchange. If your street sits under big maples, the arithmetic is simple: the larger cart's $50 a year equals just over six $8 trips to Church Road, before the one-time $75 exchange fee.
Inside the City of Nanaimo: the Green Cart
The City runs its own collection, and the RDN says plainly that it does not serve houses in the City of Nanaimo. The City's curbside program reaches about 32,000 households, limited to single-family homes and buildings up to fourplexes; apartments, larger stratas and mobile home parks arrange their own service.
The City's Green Cart is collected every week. Its guidance treats leaves, grass and light trimmings as normal contents, advising residents to line the bottom with newspaper because wet clippings stick, and to cover meat scraps with yard waste. Its not-accepted list rules out soil, sod and rocks, sawdust and wood, and plastics, including compostable plastics, although certified compostable bags are allowed as liners. Plastic bags, the City says, are the worst contaminant.
Where the material goes is spelled out on the City's post-collection page, last updated October 16, 2026. Organics are hauled to the Circular Waste BC facility at Duke Point, where operators pull out visible bags of garbage, screen the load, compost it indoors to control moisture, temperature and timing, then cure it outside. Odours are handled with negative pressure and bio-filters. Duke Point has carried heavier proposals, and the staff report on closing the incinerator loophole in its zoning had not returned to council by October 2026.
For loads too big or too woody for the cart, the City points residents to its What Goes Where directory and the Nanaimo Recycles app, or the Zero Waste Hotline at 250-756-5390. The RDN's own directory lists more than 900 items and 200 drop-off locations, with the caution that hours, fees and accepted items change.
Plants that must not go in any cart
One group of plants is excluded from both curbside routes. When the RDN opened its carts to yard waste in 2023, it named seven priority invasive plants that must go to the landfill instead, "due to their toxicity and/or seeds being resistant to the composting process": giant hogweed, invasive knotweeds, garlic mustard, spotted knapweed, wild chervil, poison hemlock and gorse.
Scotch broom is not on that list, but the RDN's invasive species page uses it as its first example of a plant that spreads quickly and degrades habitat. On private land the choice is yours; in a regional park it is not. The RDN asks people to contact its parks staff before removing any plant and says its bylaw forbids removing vegetation from an RDN park without instruction from staff.
Why the region pushes yard waste out of the landfill
The reasons are in the regional solid waste management plan, adopted by the RDN board in 2019. Its target is to cut the waste going to the landfill by 90 per cent by 2029, equal to about 109 kilograms per person per year, against the 347 kilograms the average resident was disposing of when the City summarized the plan. The City puts the landfill's lifespan at about 2040 on current rates, and says its most recent composition study found 35 per cent of what is buried there is compostable organics.
The approach is older than the plan. In 2013 the program Green Energy Futures followed a collection truck to the transfer facility and interviewed Chris Midgley, the district's manager of energy and sustainability. "It's part of a general philosophy around waste where you treat it not as a waste product, but as a resource," he said. At the time the region was collecting about 2,000 tonnes of organics a year, compost made from it retailed for $34.95 a cubic yard through a private company, and a 1.3-megawatt landfill gas plant at Cedar Road, commissioned in 2009, was burning methane from the older garbage for electricity. Parksville tried a different lever in 2018 with a ban on single-use plastic bags, which its council then killed 6-1.
The system has also had to bend. In January 2022, after snow and ice stalled curbside pickup across the region, the RDN waived tipping fees at Church Road and Cedar Road for holiday garbage and recycling. Larry Gardner, the RDN's solid waste manager, told NanaimoNewsNOW the free drop-offs were meant to clear accumulations from missed pickups over Christmas, not long-term clean-outs. "This kind of ongoing cold with snows in between and the roads just being in poor condition, this is unprecedented for me for sure," he said.
The RDN promised in 2023 to survey residents and bring a recommendation on the yard waste service to its board in early 2024. Whether that review changed the cart size limits, or simply led to the larger cart now on offer, is not stated in any of the RDN pages consulted for this guide. More practical references for the region are collected in Guides.
Questions
How much does it cost to drop off yard waste at Church Road?
Under the rates in effect from April 1, 2026, a load of yard waste up to 100 kilograms costs an $8 flat fee. Heavier loads are charged at $60 a tonne, and the same rates apply at the Regional Landfill on Cedar Road.
What are the hours of the Church Road Transfer Station?
The RDN lists both of its solid waste sites as open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week, as of October 2026. They close on provincial and federal statutory holidays, with Easter Monday the exception.
Can I put branches in the green cart in Nanaimo?
Light trimmings, yes. City of Nanaimo guidance mentions leaves, grass and light trimmings going into the Green Cart alongside food scraps, but soil, sod, rocks, wood and sawdust are on its not-accepted list, so thicker wood belongs at a drop-off.
How big can branches be in an RDN organics cart?
The RDN's 2023 rules allow twigs, small branches and prunings less than 1.5 centimetres thick and no longer than 60 centimetres. The cart lid still has to close fully, or the cart may not be emptied.
Does the RDN pick up yard waste in the City of Nanaimo?
No. The RDN's curbside program covers its electoral areas, Lantzville, Snaw-Naw-As First Nation, Parksville and Qualicum Beach. Houses in the City of Nanaimo are served by the City's own collection instead.
Can I get a bigger organics cart for garden waste?
RDN customers can swap their 100-litre organics cart for a 240-litre one for an extra $50 a year, or add a second 240-litre cart for $70 a year. A $75 administration fee applies to the exchange.
Where do I take giant hogweed or knotweed?
Not into a green cart. The RDN says priority invasive plants such as giant hogweed, invasive knotweeds, garlic mustard, spotted knapweed, wild chervil, poison hemlock and gorse must go to the landfill, because of their toxicity or seeds that survive composting.
Is the Church Road Transfer Station a landfill?
No. Waste received there is trucked on to the Regional Landfill at 1105 Cedar Road in Nanaimo, which the RDN describes as the only landfill in the region. Yard waste and other recyclables are separated at both sites.
Can apartment residents use the green cart program?
Not through the City. Nanaimo's curbside service is limited to single-family homes and buildings up to fourplexes, so residents of apartments, larger stratas and mobile home parks need to ask their building manager or strata about organics.
Can I pull invasive plants in a regional park?
Not on your own initiative. The RDN asks people to contact its parks staff first and says its bylaw forbids removing vegetation from an RDN park without their instruction.
Sources
- Hours and Tipping Fees, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2026-04-01
- Solid Waste Disposal Facilities, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2026-10
- Solid Waste Locations, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2026-10
- Solid Waste and Recycling, Regional District of Nanaimo
- Service Alert: Church Road Transfer Station - Transfer Building Repairs, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2022-08-04
- 21-088 Solid Waste Material Hauling Services, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2021-12
- RDN News Release - RDN Expanding Curbside Organics Program, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2023-02-28
- Regional District of Nanaimo Expanding Curbside Organics Program, Municipal World (RDN release), 2023-03-01
- Curbside Collection Program Overview, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2026-10
- Recycle - What Goes Where, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2026-10
- Invasive Species in the RDN, Regional District of Nanaimo (Get Involved RDN), 2026-10
- Green Cart - Organic Materials, City of Nanaimo, 2026-09-14
- Curbside Basics, City of Nanaimo, 2026-09-17
- Post-Collection Systems, City of Nanaimo, 2026-10-16
- Recycling, Yard Waste and Garbage Drop Off, City of Nanaimo, 2025-06-11
- Regional Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP), City of Nanaimo
- Free garbage & recycling drop-offs offered for mid-Island residents affected by pickup delays, NanaimoNewsNOW, 2022-01-06
- Nanaimo: Turning waste into compost, carbon credits and electricity, Green Energy Futures, 2013-04-16
