It’s official: Limiting garbage to three bags per household, per week, actually has reduced the amount of trash dumped in Red Deer’s landfill.
A year ago, City Council finally moved to a three-bag limit for city households from a previous five bags. A recent study found the change had the desired effect of reducing the amount of trash in the dump by increasing the amount of recyclables and yard waste diverted from the landfill. Reduce and reuse options like donation and participating in Kick It To the Curb were also found to be helpful.
City Council heard on Monday that after the three-bag limit was imposed, about 300 extra waste tags a month were purchased by Red Deer households. This amounts to only one-percent of households that needed to exceed the number of bags — indicating that the vast majority had transitioned to the new limit.
Extra waste tags will still be available for purchase, but will not be given out for free over the 2017 Christmas season as was allowed last December. The study showed they were only picked up by 590 households, or about two per cent.
City council was supposed to hear about a pilot project (the city-wide cart program) for further waste reduction and diversion, but it was tabled to return to council in two weeks.