Holiday Waste + Recycling Collection Day Changes + Tips to Reduce, reuse, and recycle this season
This year, close to 180,000 households with Wednesday cart collection will be affected by changes to the holiday pickup schedule. Residents that normally have collections days on Wednesdays should be aware of the following changes:
Christmas Day: Collection moves from Wednesday, December 25 to Monday, December 23.
New Year’s Day: Collection moves from Wednesday, January 1 to Monday, December 30.
Regular Wednesday pickup resumes on January 8.
Residents can stay updated on schedule changes and set reminders by signing up for free at calgary.ca/collection.
The holiday season brings gifts, good cheer, and plenty of extra waste. Packaging, gift wrap and food waste all increase during the holiday season. The holiday campaign aims to promote reduce and reuse tips while ensuring items like gift wrap, boxes, and holiday food scraps are sorted into the correct bins. For example, recycle crumpled wrapping paper, cards, and boxes loose in the blue cart. Compost bones, vegetable peelings and napkins in the green cart. Put non-recyclable gift wrap like tinsel, cellophane, metallic and foil gift wrap along with broken household items like broken dishes, ornaments, lights, and artificial Christmas trees in the black cart. Items such as old and used electronics, dead batteries, and most shipping foam and takeout containers can be taken in one convenient trip to a City Eco Centre.
For more information and tips, visit calgary.ca/holidaywaste.
After the holidays, don’t let those real Christmas trees go to waste.
Calgarians have two options to compost their real Christmas tree. For both options, all lights, ornaments, tinsel, string, and tree stands must be removed.
Option 1: Use your green cart –cut tree into small pieces to fit inside the green cart, making sure the lid can close.
Option 2: Bring to a tree drop-off location – available across the city from December 26, 2024, to January 31, 2025. Do not wrap or bag your tree. For a full list of locations visit calgary.ca/christmastree.
For more information, please visit OS Seasonal Information Hub.