Councillor Sean Chu says if the City of Calgary is looking for ways to save money, he’d like to see the frequency of green cart collection reduced.
The Ward 4 councillor says he’s received a number of emails from constituents questioning weekly pickup at this time of year.
Chu says the feedback he’s received is that people are struggling to put enough compost material in their green bin.
He sees a need for weekly pickup when there’s outdoor yard waste such as grass, leaves and branches as well as food waste.
“The green bins during the summertime is great. People have a lot of yard waste,” Chu said. “However, with winter, most families can’t fill even a quarter of it.”
City council will deal with adjustments to the 2018 budget next week, with administration looking at ways of dealing with a $170-million shortfall. Chu said some savings could come from not collecting the green cart every week.
“If we’re trying to save money, why can’t we pickup every two weeks instead of every week?”
City officials say they’re pleased with the response by Calgarians to the green cart program, not only from the perspective of compostable materials going into those bins, but the reduced amount of garbage going in black bins.
Dan Limacher is acting general manager of Utilities and Environmental protection for the City of Calgary.
He told Chu this will be a year of learning as the city-wide collection of green carts was launched this summer but the city is open to making changes.
“We are open to all options going forward in the interest of good service to our citizens and being cost-effective,” he said.
“It’s certainly something on our radar that there’s opportunity to address a number of things on our collection strategy, both green bin and black bin. This is our first fall and winter we’re going into and we will pay very close attention to how the pickup is going and what will work best.”
The city picks up green and blue carts weekly with black carts collected every second week.
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