Starting this week, residents of southwest Calgary will be getting green carts for the first time.
Following a successful pilot project in 2012, it was announced that the carts would be coming to all communities city-wide in mid-April.
“The start of cart delivery is another major milestone for the Green Cart program,” said Green Cart Implementation Leader Philippa Wagner in a release. “More than half of what’s in the garbage now can be composted instead, and we know that residents are eager to start using their green carts and seeing what a difference it can make.”
The green carts are used to collect all food and yard waste, but goes beyond conventional composting because it also accepts meat, bones, plate scrapings, tree branches and pet waste.
Officials say that 20,000 carts are expected to be delivered each week to all single family homes.
It will take about 17 weeks to deliver over 320,000 carts all across Calgary.
When you receive your cart, you will find everything needed to participate in the program, including:
- A kitchen pail for collecting food scraps
- Samples of compostable bags for lining the kitchen pail
- Samples of paper yard waste bags for extra yard waste that doesn’t fit inside the cart
- Detailed instructions on how to participate in the program along with a collection schedule
“At this point we are asking residents to just store their cart and once collection starts in their quadrant, that’s when they should start filling their cart,” Wagner said.
Collection of green carts, depending on where you live in the city, is as follows:
- Southwest: Week of July 17
- Northwest: Week of August 14
- Northeast: Week of September 4
- Southeast: Week of October 2
Further details can be found on the city’s website.
