From Junk to Clean Streets: How Calgary Handles Its Waste

Calgary is one of the highest recycling cities in the world and also one of the cleanest when you see our streets and parks free of litter. Like smoking, littering is a socially unacceptable habit and it’s true that when people see litter on the sidewalk, they feel it’s okay and simply drop theirs too.

Social pressure keeps residential neighbourhoods neat and tidy too. People keep their yards neat and tidy when they see the neighbourhood doing the same. Keeping up with the Jones’s is alive and real. Flowers go up when they see others with flowers. Property values go up too when new buyers see a particular neighbourhood is nicely looked after and will choose that over others that show neglect. By-laws enforce standards for lawn care and keeping trees pruned, etc., but for most of us, its just pride that makes our properties look nice.

Our organic waste goes to an organics landfill where it is converted to soil. Recyclables like paper and plastic go to a special facility that packs these into bales and are sold to recycling companies. Steel goes to steel recyclers. Mattresses go to mattress recyclers – thus the mattress fees in bin rentals. The rest, construction and household goes to a landfill just for that.

On landfills, we’re running out of space and some private landfills are almost full. Any concern about landfills taking over our city are unfounded. If you look on a map of Calgary, they occupy relatively small pieces of land in comparison to the scope of the total area. With technology, our landfills don’t pollute or emit gases and will eventually be turned into possible ski hills. Many cities have several such hills but with Alberta’s blessed mountains just an hour away and our own Olympic Ski Hill, landfills may just stay as big hills for all time. Who knows.

Recently Calgary passed a “no plastic bag” law that changed our shopping habits. After some complaints it took off and everyone got used to it and now we carry around heavier duty re-usable shopping bags. The bonus is these new bags are bigger and don’t break and of course don’t end up in the garbage. Looking back, I don’t know what the fuss was about losing plastic bags.

Plastic is all around us and our fossil fuels make it possible. Our homes and cars are filled with plastic-based parts. Anyone thinking plastic can be banned doesn’t understand how basic plastic is today in everything we buy and own. First thing is, forget about cell phones and laptop computers. No TV and most appliances. There is no alternative to plastic so the best we can do is make sure it’s recyclable – and not all plastics are.

Today’s waste collection industry is huge and important. Everything we build and buy eventually becomes garbage to dispose of. Handling waste properly so it does not pollute is a modern miracle of science and technology and we take that for granted. Many cities in developing countries are not so fortunate and suffer from diseases caused by lack of such services. Our health and well-being is largely due to having systems in place to eliminate waste in a safe manner.

Today a single driver in a modern truck can pick up thousands of bins a day. A fast efficient and economic way to collect our waste. Sixty years ago, an open garbage truck with one man standing in the back full of garbage would catch garbage cans thrown up to him by two guys on the ground. Remember those metal bent-up garbage cans of those days? Trucks evolved gradually into units called packers that still exist today in most cities. Requiring two men, this is most common in downtown city environments, and barely changed from the 1970s when these trucks came into play.

Lastly, we can thank our cleanup crews, our magpies and crows, that make sure nothing is left on the ground. All the way down to the microbes that inhabit our soil and take care of the rest.

So, we’re very lucky in Calgary where everyone pitches in to keep our city clean and tidy.

If junk has taken over your life, give us a call and let go of your junk!