By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Curbside recycling nearly a reality as blue cart blitz is set to begin

Apr 9, 2019 | 12:08 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The process started back in 2016, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer for curbside recycling in Lethbridge.

Rows of blue carts are being set up in the City of Lethbridge’s industrial yard as staff get prepared for delivery to houses across the city to start next week.

Blue carts are scheduled to be delivered to all Lethbridge homes between April 15 and May 10.

Joel Sanchez, the General Manager of the City’s Waste and Recycling department, says the development of this program has been an enormous undertaking.

“To see all the carts set up and ready to be delivered is really exciting for our staff and for the community as a whole. We’re really happy to start moving forward with the final step. As you can see here, we have around 5,000 carts that have arrived in the first two days and were expecting to have somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 here this week,” Sanchez stated.

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Crews are planning to start cart delivery on the north side of the city before moving south and then finishing on the west side.

“The carts are going to be delivered to the front of the house, and we’re asking residents that if they see a neighbour has a cart, but they haven’t received theirs yet to give it two days,” Sanchez continued. “At that point, if they still haven’t received their cart, they can call 3-1-1 to make a request or ask why they haven’t received a cart, and we will be able to help them at that point.”

Officials want to remind residents that they might not want to start filling their blue carts immediately as the curbside recycling pickup will not begin until all of the carts are delivered.

Depending on what part of the city residents live in, the first blue cart pick-up will happen between May 14 and the 24.

“Pickup day will be on the same day that they currently have for the black carts. When we deliver the blue carts, there will be a package on top of the lid that will have a map with a location to see where they are located. Then go to the table that has the first pickup date, again to make sure the collection day is the same, they just need to locate where they live on the map and see when the first pickup date is.”

Also included in that package, according to Sanchez, will be an Ins and Outs brochure so residents can see what materials are included in the program and what materials are not included.
“We also want to stress the message that if residents have any doubt about whether certain materials are recyclable or not, put it into the black cart. It’s better to have it there and not as a contaminant for the products we’re going to have at the Materials Recovery Facility.”

These materials are also available now in the tools section of curbside.lethbridge.ca.

As far as any concerns about the switchover to bi-weekly collection and the impact it may have on garbage, Sanchez says the pilot project showed they’re on the right track.

“In Phase 1 we had 900-1000 homes that were on bi-weekly garbage collection, alternating weeks between recycling and garbage, and we didn’t see any issues or have any problems. There were no major concerns about garbage pickup being bi-weekly, and we also need to remember that some of the materials that we’re putting in the black cart today are going to move to the blue cart so the quantity should be fine.”

After the first blue cart collection, residents will alternate putting out their black carts one week and blue carts the next.

Residents are reminded to sign-up for the City’s Waste Wizard tool to print off collection schedules, set up text or email reminders and search materials they aren’t sure about.

The Waste Wizard can be found here.

Something else that Sanchez says they’re working on is going back to council with a proposal for a green bin that covers organic materials sometime in the future.

“When that happens it will alleviate even more of the problem. The residential waste collection study that we did a few years ago showed that we had 47 percent of materials in the bins were organics, 27 to 28 percent were recyclable materials, and only 24 to 25 percent were actually garbage. We expect that now we’re going to move the 27 percent to the blue cart, which will divert a lot of material away from the landfill to the recycling facility,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez believes what they’re trying to do is the right thing.

“We just want to make sure we extend the life of the landfill as much as we can, and by moving that stream out of the landfill, we can gain a few more years of life for it. We’re also trying to promote green initiatives because moving forward the plan is to see the residents of Lethbridge generating less garbage in the long term.”