Lethbridge celebrates Earth Day with historic signing, curbside organics anniversary

A year into the city’s green cart program almost six-million kilograms of organic waste has been diverted from the landfill, according to the City of Lethbridge.

That number averages out to around 175 kilograms per household and city staff say a year in, they are continuing to look for additional feedback on the program.

“Changing what you do in your household always comes with some adjustments,” says James Nicholls, City of Lethbridge waste collections manager.

The city says there are tips residents can implement to ensure there is less mess when they throw out their old food.

“You can use cardboard. So, let’s say you have pizza on Friday night you can take that soiled cardboard, the stuff that’s covered in grease, you can actually take that, line your pail with it,” added Nicholls. “I actually use things like cereal boxes. Cereal boxes are fairly sturdy, meant for food.”

1:40 Lethbridge collects nearly 4,000 tonnes of organic waste in first 6 months of green carts

Meanwhile, a historic deal was announced for the 54,000-acre McIntyre Ranch south of Lethbridge.

It’s the largest of its kind in the country, meant to prevent any development from taking over the land which allows the family to continue raising cattle.

“The landowners are going to continue to live and own the property. They have an active cattle ranch which actually has biodiversity benefits for the grass. There are certain conservation rights that they have released. There’s never going to be any cultivation of that land, draining of wetlands. things like that,” says Jeremy Hogan, the Nature Conservancy of Canada development officer.

1:52 Major conservation partnership announced in southern Alberta

As the weather warms up the city will be implementing weekly collection of green bins starting April 30 and a special event called ‘Community Conversations’ will encourage residents to check out the waste and environment booth.

“From Environment Lethbridge’s perspective it’s really great to have had these moments where we can kind of mark the importance of the environment and get everybody maybe thinking about some different actions they might want to take in their own lives,” says Kathleen Sheppard, Environment Lethbridge executive director.