- [Narrator] Calgary's garbage story
starts with the stuff we throw away
and why a lot of it
is just too good to waste.
That's why Calgary has a three-bin system.
- Blue, green and black, right?
- [Narrator] That's right, Cody.
Your blue recycling cart,
green food and yard waste cart,
and black garbage cart
all work together
to deal with most of your household waste
in an affordable and responsible way.
By separating out our waste,
we can turn old materials
into new products to save resources
and protect valuable landfill space
for future generations of Calgarians to use.
The proper sorting that you do at home
makes a big difference.
Let's talk about what goes into your black cart first.
- Like things that can't be reused,
recycled or composted?
- [Narrator] Exactly.
Once garbage goes in your black bin,
it ends up in the landfill
where it gets buried forever
in the ground along with the 30 million tons of trash
Calgarians have thrown out
over the past 50 years.
- Wow, that's a lot of trash!
- [Narrator] It really is.
While we're fortunate to have
three City landfills in Calgary,
they aren't the best place to put all our waste.
- How come?
- [Narrator] Because landfills are expensive
to operate and maintain.
Today's landfills have engineered systems in place
to protect public health and the environment.
These protective systems make sure
the stuff that ends up in a landfill,
stays in a landfill,
and it doesn't contaminate
our land, air and water.
Our landfills are filling up,
but Calgarians can control
how fast this happens.
We don't want to bury resources
that could be turned into new products.
- So what's the big deal if recyclables,
yard waste and food scraps
are buried in the landfill?
- [Narrator] Well, let's look at
our food scraps and yard waste first.
In nature, there is no waste.
When an apple falls to the ground
it breaks down
and adds valuable nutrients to the soil.
But that's not what happens
when an apple ends up in the landfill.
- What does happen?
- [Narrator] Food and yard waste
doesn't breakdown into soil, compost
or anything useful in a landfill
because there's no oxygen.
Worse yet, food scraps and yard waste
in a landfill creates
some nasty consequences,
like liquid leachate
as the moisture from the food
and yard waste oozes through the garbage
picking up other contaminants.
- Leachate sounds gross.
- [Narrator] It sure is.
The City needs to collect and treat this leachate
to prevent contamination of the groundwater.
While the food and yard waste
sits in the landfill,
it also produces methane.
- Isn't methane a bad greenhouse gas?
- [Narrator] Yup, and methane
is 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide
when it comes to causing climate change.
- [Cody] That's not good.
So using the green bin is a great way
to reduce my family's impact on the environment.
- [Narrator] You got it!
But it's not just food scraps
and yard waste that we need to keep from going to landfill.
When you garbage paper,
cardboard, plastic, tin or glass,
that resource is gone forever.
The raw materials used
and energy it took to make
that packaging or container is wasted.
But by sorting materials properly
into your blue cart, they can be recycled
and reused in a circular economy,
keeping materials in use
for as long as possible.
We also reduce the pollution
caused by having to mine, log and process new resources.
- That must help the environment.
- [Narrator] Just by recycling paper and cardboard
in the Blue Cart program,
we're saving over one million trees a year.
- I bet we're saving energy too.
- [Narrator] We sure are.
It takes 95% less energy
to make new aluminum cans and tin foil
from our used cans and foil
than to make it from raw materials.
The same goes for plastics and glass too!
Calgarians are now composting
and recycling more than ever.
More materials now end up
in blue and green bins
compared to the garbage,
keeping valuable resources
from being lost forever in landfills.
In fact, single-family residential Black Cart garbage
has dropped in half since we started
using Blue and Green Carts.
By using your blue, green and black carts at home,
you've saved a generation's worth of landfill space.
- Good work, Calgary!
- [Narrator] So through reducing, re-using,
recycling and composting,
we're making a positive difference
today and for our future.
- To make sure the right things
end up in your blue, green, and black bins,
go to calgary.ca/mywaste.