Red Deerians diverted 57 tonnes of waste from the landfill in the first four weeks of the Green Cart Pilot.
Keran Braich, a city waste diversion specialist, said the city did not know what to expect for volumes when the project was rolled out on April 27.
Organic waste such as branches, coffee grounds, tables scraps and dryer lint is collected every week from 2,000 selected households across the city.
“We were pretty impressed with that amount,” she said. “Even with our spot checks, we can tell that people are using it.”
As they become more comfortable with the program, more participants are expected to use the carts, said Braich.
But she anticipates the volumes may go down in the winter months because there will be no yard waste.
The pilot is the latest city initiative in the plans to reduce the per capita waste disposal rate to 600 kg per capita from the current 812 kg by 2020.
Residential homes generate about 30 per cent of the waste ending up in the landfill. Up to 40 per cent of the household waste are organics.
The city ships the organic waste to a site near Penhold to be composted for agricultural land.
The city recently conducted a waste composition study or audit and plan to conduct one very season. This will help determine what people are putting in the carts.
Braich said once the city has completed a few more audits, they will have more concrete information to share with the public.
If the program is successful, it may go citywide in 2017. The city is collecting feedback from participants in the two-year program.
On average, the city landfilled 300 tonnes of waste per day in 2013 at its regional landfill.
A whopping 91,313 tonnes of waste of all kinds went into the landfill in 2013, compared to 90,266 in 2012 and 86,277 in 2011.
In Red Deer alone, nearly 75,000 tonnes of trash was thrown out.
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com