Lethbridge City Hall. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

City proposes starting curbside compost collection in 2021

Oct 7, 2019 | 4:27 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The City of Lethbridge is one step closer to potentially starting to collect residential food and yard waste.

Council heard several presentations Monday afternoon from the city’s waste and recycling department, as well as a few contracted firms who researched the possible options.

Some of these options include different combinations of using in-house or contracted-out services.

Waste and Recycling GM Joel Sanchez says the preferred route is to use city-owned trucks to collect the green bins and have it processed by a private company in a public facility near the current landfill.

If council decides to go with the preferred option, collection would be done on a “seasonal” system where organic waste is picked up weekly during the summer and bi-weekly during the winter. Garbage and recycling pickup would still be done on a bi-weekly, rotating basis as it is done now.

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: February 10-16, 2025

Feb 10, 2025

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: January 29-February 2, 2025

Jan 29, 2025

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: January 20-26, 2025

Jan 20, 2025

Sanchez compared it to how the City of Calgary started their green bin program by having weekly pickup.

“They realized the carts were really empty during the winter, so why are you going there every week when you could probably go every two weeks or every three weeks. We want to make sure we do the right thing, we want to make sure we present a program that is the cheapest as possible for residents.”

He estimates that it would cost $17.1-million to build and buy all the necessary facilities and vehicles. When the curbside recycling program launched earlier this year, the capital cost was around $16.3-million.

Operating costs and revenues are expected to cancel themselves out about $5.1-million each way every year.

Currently, residents pay $20.60 per month for garbage and recycling collection, but with the advent of curbside composting, it would add another $8.25 to your bill, totaling $28.85 per household per month.

The numbers, however, do not include the possibility that the compost produced at the facility could then be sold to farmers or homeowners for use in their fields, or to private companies to make it into their own fertilizer products.

“If that revenue is there and we have a significant amount coming into the program, then we can come back into council and say, listen, now we have an additional revenue and, instead of $8.25, it could be $8. I don’t know what the number could be, but we will be able to find a way to reflect those changes.”

Sanchez says organics are a big part of their waste reduction targets. By 2021, they hope to reduce the amount of waste reaching the landfill by 50% from 2015’s levels and by 65% in 2030.

After curbside recycling started in 2019, about 57% of what went into the average black bin consisted of food and yard waste that could be composted.

Given that the amount of recyclables going into garbage bins went from 25% to just 10% in the years before and after curbside collection started, Sanchez believes the same could be true of the proposed program.

Assuming council gives their go-ahead to proceed with organics collection, a pilot project would be launched in the spring of 2020. In this, 1,000 homes would take part and the city would use the feedback they get from the test homes to improve the program before rolling it out across Lethbridge.

At the same time, public engagement will continue on compost collection and crews will start building the necessary infrastructure.

If all goes well, city-wide implementation would happen in the spring of 2021.

While Monday’s presentation was merely for council to get information on the potential paths forward, he says time is of the essence.

“We have 18 months right now. If we start right now, we will go to construction during the construction season. If we miss this window and then we start this sometime in June next year, we will have to wait until March the following year to do the construction so this will delay everything.”

For more information on everything that was presented to council regarding the Curbside Organics Program Implementation Plan during the October 8th Community Issues Committee Meeting, use this link.

How much of each material goes into garbage bins. (City of Lethbridge)

Some of the details of the preferred method of organics collection. (City of Lethbridge)

How much waste collection would cost with organics. (City of Lethbridge)

Timelines for potentially implementing organics collection. (City of Lethbridge)

For local news delivered daily to your email inbox, subscribe for free to the Lethbridge News Now newsletter here. You can also download the Lethbridge News Now mobile app in the Google Play and the Apple App Stores.