Calgary’s Cart System: What Goes in the Black, Blue and Green Carts

Three carts, three streams

Each cart is a stream rather than a container. The blue cart is the recycling stream: paper and packaging. The green cart is the organics stream: food scraps and yard waste, composted at the City’s facility and returned to land as compost. The black cart is the residual stream: the things that cannot be recycled or composted.

The carts themselves belong to the City and are assigned to the address rather than to the household. They stay with the property when you move, and the City repairs or replaces them at no charge when they are damaged, including cracked lids or bodies, missing or broken wheels, or a cart that has gone missing. Scratches, cleanliness and odour are not grounds for replacement.

• Blue cart — recycling: paper and packaging, kept empty, clean and loose.
• Green cart — food and yard waste: food scraps, leaves, branches and grass clippings.
• Black cart — garbage: the end-of-life items that cannot be reused, recycled or composted.
• Carts are City property and stay with the address; take broken carts up with the City rather than replacing them yourself.

What belongs in each cart

The blue cart takes paper and packaging: cardboard, paper and flyers, glass food jars, food cans, plastic containers and bottles. Recyclables go in empty, clean and loose rather than bagged, and everything must fit inside the cart with the lid closed. The list of accepted packaging has been expanding, and the City flags newly accepted categories on its blue cart page, so it is worth checking before you default to the black cart.

The green cart takes food and yard waste: fruit and vegetable peelings, plate scrapings, spoiled food, leaves, branches, plants and grass clippings. Food has to be separated from its packaging first. Coffee cups, foam meat trays, takeout containers, coffee pods, metal cans, jars and plastic tubs all belong elsewhere, even when they are marketed as compostable, and plastic, biodegradable and fabric bags are not accepted. If you line a kitchen pail, use a certified compostable liner.

The black cart takes what is left: diapers and personal hygiene products, hoses, broken household goods and other items at the end of their life. Anything longer than the cart must be broken down so the lid closes.

Collection frequency and finding your day

The three streams do not share a timetable. Recycling is on the most frequent cycle of the three, garbage on the least frequent, and the green cart is seasonal, collected more often through the growing season and less often in winter when yard waste volumes fall away.

Because the schedule is tied to your address and to the holiday calendar, the reliable way to know your days is to look them up for your address rather than to copy a neighbour. The City’s scheduling tool produces your collection days, reminders, a printable calendar and the pickup calendar for the waste app.

Extra waste and items no cart will take

Extra garbage that will not fit in the black cart needs a garbage tag before it will be collected; the tags are a City programme with their own page. Extra recycling goes to a community recycling depot, because recyclables are not collected in bags and overflowing the blue cart does not work. Extra yard waste can go into paper yard waste bags beside the green cart, and the City also runs free seasonal yard waste drop-off at its Eco Centres.

For anything that fits no cart at all, the destinations are a City Eco Centre or a seasonal Community Cleanup: furniture, mattresses, appliances containing refrigerant, large quantities of construction material, electronics and tires. Household hazardous waste is a separate route again. Paint, chemicals, aerosol cans, propane cylinders, bear spray and fluorescent tubes must go to a designated household hazardous waste drop-off, even when the container is empty.

• Garbage tags for bags beyond the black cart.
• Community recycling depots for extra recyclables.
• Paper yard waste bags for extra organics.
• Eco Centres and Community Cleanups for bulky household items.
• Household hazardous waste drop-off for anything carrying a hazard symbol.

The safety rules that matter most

Some black cart mistakes are not merely untidy. Batteries, including the lithium-ion batteries inside phones, e-cigarettes and cordless tools, can ignite in a collection truck or at the landfill, and propane cylinders, aerosols and other hazardous materials are excluded for the same reason.

• No batteries or battery-powered devices in any cart.
• No propane, aerosols, paint, chemicals or bear spray — these go to household hazardous waste drop-off.
• No car batteries, motor oil, oil filters, tires or metal car parts.
• No oversized items. Break them down or take them to an Eco Centre.
• No recyclables, food scraps, yard waste or donatable goods in the black cart.

Missed collection and cart problems

If a cart is not collected on your day, the City asks that you leave it out and report a missed pickup rather than bringing it in and waiting a cycle. Cart repairs, replacements and requests for additional carts are handled through the City’s cart service pages or 311, and the City also documents options for sharing carts between units in row housing and fourplexes.