Calgary’s experiment in curbside composting is working so well, garbage trucks are making fewer visits to collect waste.
The city’s green cart pilot program has seen 7,500 households in Abbeydale, Brentwood, Cougar Ridge and Southwood toss their kitchen scraps, yard waste and other organic matter, the city’s utilities and corporate services committee heard Wednesday.
A review of the pilot project found 91 per cent of participants support a citywide program.
In one year, the city estimates 1.9-million kilograms of organics have been diverted from landfills, reducing the amount of waste collected from those communities by 40 per cent in the past year. Yard waste made up half of what they put into green carts, 45 per cent was food waste.
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City garbage collectors are now only visiting those communities every two weeks, said Dave Griffiths, the city’s director of waste and recycling.
The content of the green carts has been going to a private company that has been producing composting material.
The full cost of taking the green-cart program citywide will be discussed by council on April 15.
Ald. John Mar said communities in the high-density Beltline are crying out for composting and recycling services and he questioned how realistic the city’s goal is of diverting 80 per cent of its waste by the year 2020.
“I have thousands living in the most densely packed communities with no composting,” said Mar.
“Clearly it needs more attention.”
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