The City of Fort Saskatchewan is trying to address an issue with waste collection.
Over the last year, the city has seen more overflowing garbage carts and higher levels of contamination in green organics carts and blue bags. This includes non-compostable and non-recyclable items.
“We’ve seen a growing trend of more garbage going to landfill and fewer households fully utilizing their green carts and blue bags on collection day,” said the city's waste program supervisor Sadie Miller. “The recycling and organics that make it to the processor are also more contaminated than they were at the start of the program.”
It takes resources and manpower to remove contaminated materials from the composting facility and creates lower-quality compost, which impacts the facility’s ability to market the completed product. Over time, this can result in Fort Saskatchewan residents paying more for processing.
“We know our community can sort and achieve success with our waste program because we’ve done it before,” stated Miller. “The work each household puts in today to divert material out of our landfills will benefit us in the long run.”
Green cart items include food scraps, soiled paper products and garden trimmings. Blue bag items include empty boxes, tin cans, and clean laundry detergent bottles with the lids removed.
Plastic shopping bags, metals, rubber, toys, and foam packaging are all waste.
Cart lids must be closed for the city to collect carts -- contaminated green carts and blue bags will not be collected.