During Environment Week my employer, ATCO Pipelines, gave me an opportunity to visit our city’s recycling plant run by Metro Recycling Services. We were able to view the facility through a large window overlooking the mountain of recycled trash while witnessing the unloading of the trucks to the conveyor belts taking it all through the sorting process.
Along with a short video, our ‘tour guide’ Andrea showed us what we should and shouldn’t be putting into our blue carts.
I have never been a recycler until the inception of the Blue Cart Program, and together with Environment Week I was educated in bulk.
It's been just over a year since Calgary started their Blue Cart Recycling program.Calgary BlueCart Program . It is 2010 and, as it turns out, we are a couple of decades behind so we have a lot of catching up to do. The Blue Cart is a great starter program for me because it got the ball rolling. I don't have to do any sorting and the truck comes once a week for a pick up on the same day as my regular garbage. Making it easy was the difference for me.
You just have to check out what the City of Edmonton is doing Edmonton's Recycling and you'll realize just how far behind Calgary really is. From a Composting Program, to Eco Centres, to their Waste Management Centre, Edmonton does a phenomenal job recycling.
What I learned:
• Most bottle caps are not recyclable• If Calgary had a composting program we could cut our garbage by at least half
• Glass is not recycled in Calgary, we are currently stockpiling it until we can find a market
• Bottles at the bottle depot are sanitized and returned to companies to reuse
• Residential composts are inexpensive
The most important information for me was the message to Reduce first, Reuse, then Recycle. Another one to add to that may be to Refuse (i.e. flyer delivery).
Going Forward:
There are a few things I can do to start improving my Carbon Footprint. The first thing on agenda is to post a NO FLYER sign on my mailbox. I am also removing the bag off my lawn more and let the clippings work their magic on my lawn which will be far less work for me as well. I've also decided to investigate the composting idea.
I have come to realize that it doesn't take a lot of effort to get started and I can see that this is just the beginning.
Running out of landfill space was the big reason why Edmonton needed to come up with some innovative ideas to find a way to get rid of their garbage, and they made it happen. Calgary has 30 years of landfill space left. Unless the people of our city force the issue, with this much time left, there is no real push to make changes. It’s really up to us.
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