Renewed plan to achieve waste reduction in city applauded
By Lethbridge Herald on March 13, 2025.
Editor,
In the decade since targets for waste diversion were first set by Lethbridge City Council in 2013, waste generation going to the landfill has declined by approximately thirty percent, from 1,190 kg/capita to 838 kg/capita, across all sectors – residential, construction/demolition and industrial/commercial/institutional (ICI).
These gains are largely attributable to recycling and organics composting initiatives including the curbside blue cart program fully rolled out in spring 2019 and the green cart program fully rolled out in spring 2023. There is now an Organics Processing Facility at the Waste and Recycling Centre. Other measures include differential tipping fees starting in 2016 and mandatory recycling and organics program for businesses fully launched by 2022. Since 2015, large amounts of construction and demolition material have been diverted from the landfill through sorting and recycling or repurposing.
Southern Alberta Group for Environment (SAGE) and Environment Lethbridge (EL) applaud this accomplishment. City Council and administration, businesses and individual citizens are demonstrating leadership in waste reduction.
The new City of Lethbridge Waste Management Master Plan (WMMP), approved on November 12, 2024, sets the course towards further waste reduction with new targets of 580 kg/capita by 2030 and 375 kg/capita by 2050. How will our community achieve these targets?
There is still room for improving performance with existing waste diversion measures. Organics collection is being extended to multi-family dwellings. Waste audits show over 30% organic waste, mostly food scraps, is inappropriately placed in black carts instead of green carts by single-residence households. Likewise for the business sector, 19% of what is sent to be landfilled could be diverted to recycling and 32 per cent to organics composting. Barriers for households and businesses to separate recyclables and organics from garbage are being identified as are ways to overcome them. Further innovations for repurposing construction materials are being tried.
Measures identified in the 2024 WMMP are shifting our community’s approach from increasing waste diversion towards reducing waste generation. Collaborative initiatives with Recycling Council of Alberta and Environment Lethbridge are promoting a circular economy where products and materials are kept in use for as long as possible and waste and pollution are avoided.
Lethbridge participation in Recycling Council of Alberta’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulation, approved by City Council on December 10, 2024 and taking effect on April 1, 2025 across Alberta, is a Circular Economy initiative expected to reduce residential waste going to landfill. EPR transfers the financial responsibility for recycling single-use products (plastic, metal and glass), packaging and printed paper from municipal taxpayers to producers. A single, province-wide system, is expected to clarify what can be recycled, make recycling easier and encourage better product design.
An interactive map of recycling depots, secondhand stores and repair shops can be found on the Environment Lethbridge website as well as a Green Gifts Guide and notice of initiatives contributing to a sharing economy including Reuse Rendezvous in spring and fall, repair fairs and swaps such as little libraries and Harambee Grandmothers fabric and yarn sale. Community Leaders in waste reduction are profiled on EL’s WasteLess website and information provided on avoiding food waste and textile waste. All citizens have a role in helping our community reduce waste.
Submitted by
Kathleen Sheppard, Executive Director, Environment Lethbridge
Braum Barber, Chair, Southern Alberta Group for Environment (SAGE)
Cheryl Bradley, Chair, EL WasteLess Committee and Director, SAGE
3
-2
These are remarkable stats on diverting future resources from being wasted. And I applaud the philosophy of continuous improvement.
Not mentioned is the removal of the Blue Cart monthly fee announced recently. It feels like only yesterday when Harold and buckwheat fortold ever-escalating rates and the end of civilization as we know it. Maybe they over-reacted.
Yes Sophie, we live rent free in your head. Grow up.
I thought the hysterical trolling you engage in, when so clearly exposed as such, would warrant an apology to the City of Lethbridge?
T
My goodness! As Sowell is American, I’ll cite some examples from the US in my rebuttal.
Right, except for those activists who fought for US Independence, or those activists who agitated for the US to enter WW1 and WW2, or those pesky Suffragettes, or those activists who championed the Civil Rights Movement, supported racial equality and a woman’s freedom of reproductive choice. And what about those rabble-rousing activists who fought to establish the US National Parks system, arguably one of that country’s best ideas, at least according to Ken Burns, a US national treasure himself. Surely, those aren’t the activists Sowell, a disciple of the Chicago School of Economics, is referring to.
sowell is one of those minorities that rednecks and racists and the self serving like to turn to in the hope of looking good while referencing/associating with a visible minority. the quote referenced is about as vague and meandering as anything he has uttered, but it does very well if one wishes to showcase his support of elitism and the establishment.
how about we substitute elitism, nepotism, egotism for activism.
thanks to organics and recycling, what leaves our house as garbage is greatly diminished. that noted, recycling needs to expand greatly, to include sundry nontoxic metal products, and glass.