Blue Cart Recycling Update

More recycling, less waste; it's The City's goal to recycle 80 per cent of our waste by 2020, and Calgarians' support of Blue Cart has gone a long way in achieving that goal. More than 90 per cent of Calgarians currently take advantage of The City's Blue Cart recycling program.

Since July 3, all single family homes in Calgary have received Blue Cart collection. There's no doubt that Calgarians have embraced Blue Cart recycling with more than 20,000 tonnes of recyclable materials collected to date - enough to fill 5,000 collection trucks, which lined up end to end would stretch from City Hall to Strathmore. Those materials are sorted and processed at a privately owned plant in southeast Calgary and then shipped to various markets to be turned into new products.

Community recycling depots were converted to accept plastics and no longer require sorting of materials, improving convenience for residents and reducing the amount of trucks and manpower required. The depots will remain in place to serve residents of multi-family dwellings and to handle the overflow from homes that receive Blue Cart service.

The City's Waste & Recycling Services group is monitoring the impact of Blue Cart recycling on the volume of garbage that's being collected and could potentially adjust both recycling and garbage collection routes to maximize the efficient use of the fleet.