A New Recycling Facility for Calgary
Through a partnership with GFL Environmental, The City of Calgary officially has a new Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to provide additional recycling services and increased recycling capacity to Calgarians.
The new facility is just outside the city limits in Rocky View County, and is owned and operated by GFL. The MRF leverages cutting-edge sorting technology, including Al robotics, ballistics, and optical sorters that use digital recognition to identify and separate and sort recyclables in milliseconds.
By recycling, we conserve resources by putting materials back to productive uses. Recycling also helps conserve finite space in our landfills through significant waste diversion. GFL ensures that recyclables only go to legitimate recyclers that have been screened through a comprehensive vetting process, and operates in compliance with all applicable environmental regulations.
A few interesting recycling facts:
Approximately 55,000 tones of recyclables are collected each year through the City’s Blue Cart program, Community Recycling Depots, and the City’s commercial collection divIsion.
In the last 15 years Calgarians have recycled over 880 million kilograms of recyclables - enough to fill the Bow Tower skyscraper downtown 12 times!
Over 351,000 single-family households are serviced by the Blue Cart program on a weekly basis.
80% of what Calgarians put in their Blue Cart is actually recyclable. The other 20% is contamination. Some of the most common contaminates include: scrap metal, mixed packaging (like chip bags, food wrappers, or toothpaste tubes), garden hoses, ceramic dishes, styrofoam, plastic cutlery, coffee cup or fountain pop lids, construction materials, and electronics.
If you are unsure if something can be recycled, or if you are curious to learn more about Calgary’s waste diversion work, visit calgary.ca/bluecart.