Green carts for compost eyed by city

The city is looking at expanding Calgary’s recycling program with the addition of green bins for organic waste like grass clippings and food scraps.

If council approves the plan, a pilot project next year would see bins distributed to about 8,000 homes in different areas of the city, said Dave Griffiths, the city's director of waste and recycling services.

"We’re actually looking at another cart-based system. And we’re looking at a smaller cart, about half the size of the blue and black," he said.

Organic waste accounts for about 60 per cent of the waste produced by Calgary residents, Griffiths said.

"It is contributing to reducing our landfill life," he said.

The city estimated earlier this year that a green cart system could take 70,000 tons of organic material out of landfills every year.

"If we take them into our landfills we lose the opportunity, just like the recyclables, to extract a resource instead of dealing with it as a waste," Griffiths said.

Griffiths said officials are confident that the compost produced in the program will not simply pile up, unwanted.

"Compost that’s high quality is very marketable," he said.

The city is committed to diverting 80 per cent of waste from its landfills by 2020.

If the green bin project is a success, Calgary could have a city-wide system in place by 2015, Griffiths said.