200 Million Kilos in 3 Years

In the past three years Calgarians have recycled more than 200 million kilograms of materials.

"Calgarians have made recycling a part of their every day routines and are doing the right thing by tossing their paper, cardboard, plastic containers, food cans and glass jars into their blue cart or community recycling depot," said program development leader Paula Magdich. "Every bit makes a difference and together we're making big strides in reducing the amount of waste we send to our landfills."

The 200 million kg represents a 71 per cent increase in recycling in the city and is in part being attributed to both the city's Blue Cart program and community recyclingdepots making the switch to nosort recycling. With the increase in recycling, more than 20,000 garbage trucks of material have beenkept out of local landfills.

With the recent release of the City's 2012 Citizen Satisfaction Survey, 95 per cent of respondents said Calgary's blue cart program was important and 90 per cent said they were satisfied with the
service.

Since 2009, paper and cardboard have been the most recycled items in the city at 178 million kilograms followed by 14 million kilograms of glass jars, seven million kilograms of plastic containers and four million kilograms of food cans and foil. According to the City, the paper and cardboard recycled alone, is enough to make 250 million notebooks and saves three million trees from being cut down.

Recycled products are purchased by manufacturers who in turn use them to create new products, for instance the almost five million kilograms of food cans collected in the last three years are
equivalent to the amount of metal needed to build 5,000 cars.

The number is a positive for Calgary's 80/20 initiative, which has the goal of seeing waste sent to Calgary landfills since 2007 reduced by 80 per cent by 2020.

A large factor of achieving that goal is the issue of multi-family recycling in the City. Currently, community recycling depots are the only avenues for recycling for multi-family units.

According to The City, "following council's direction in early 2011, The City is embarking on a project to engage stakeholders to develop a multi-family recycling strategy."

The City's Waste & Recycling Services is scheduled to report back to council no later than 2014 with recommendations to be implemented between 2015 and 2017.

For more information, visit Calgary.ca/recycle.

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