Eco centres make it easier to dispose and recycle unwanted household items

The City of Calgary has announced changes to its self-sorting eco centres that are designed to be convenient, easy to accessand open to accepting a larger variety of materials that don't fit into your regular trash bins.

Open throughout the year, the drop-off locations are available in multiple landfills in the city, according to a news release, which states the enhanced drop-off experience includes signage that's easy to understand, a modified layoutand labelled drop-off areas that make it easier to figure out which item goes where.

"We've made them to be reorganized to be much easier and faster to drop off in [an] all-in-one location," said Elias Tomaras, project manager of special projects for the City of Calgary in an interview with The Homestretch.

He also explained why the eco centres, previously known as Throw 'n' Go, were renamed.

"The older Throw 'n' Go name sort of emphasized the convenience part of the service and focused primarily on garbage. So we wanted a name that better reflected all the services available at these new locations," Tomaras said.

This sentiment was echoed in the release.

"This new name highlights the evolution of recycling and reuse opportunities and provides a familiar name that residents may recognize from neighbouring municipalities that have similar facilities."

Open to a variety of items

The eco centres are open to accepting an array of materials and items, including foam packaging, materials that need to be disposed of in safe ways like auto batteries, paintor chemicals, reusable common household items, oversized garbage like construction materials, and more.

While many items can be dropped off free of charge, certain materials require a minimum fee of $25, according to Tomaras.

"If you bring those charge items with the free items, most customers end up paying just a flat rate minimum charge of $25. That's if they bring in a load of materials that's less than 250 kilos."

LISTEN|Elias Tomaras talks about the eco centres:

The Homestretch7:34Eco-Centres

We tell you about the city's newly branded "Eco-Centres", a one stop shop to keep materials out of the landfill.

However, on the rare occasion you need to dispose of items that weigh over 250 kilos, you'll be expected to pay for the total weight of the materials.

Many items do fall under the no-charge category, such as electronics and household hazardous waste, includingpaint and chemicals.

The eco centres are ultimately meant to serve as an alternative to landfills as far as recyclable and reusable items are concerned, Tomaras said.

He noted landfills and eco centres must work together to ensure recyclable and non-reusable waste are segregated in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

How much material ends up in landfills when it could've been easily recycled or reused instead? It's hard to be sure, according to Tomaras.

"We do know that our residential customers bring us a lot of waste at our waste management facilities. So for residential customers alone, we take on average about 5,500 tons of material each month," he said.

Reuse, recycle

The city testedits new eco centredesign last year.

"We did see a lot of customers taking advantage of the new recycling and reuse options because [of] the materials that we were able to easily measure. So think of cardboard, electronicsand metal, for example. Many of them went up by as much as 30 per cent in terms of the amount of extra material that we captured from the previous year," Tomaras said.

"And then even within our reuse area, it almost tripled in terms of the actual quantity of material that we were able to retain instead of it going actually to the landfill."

The items that qualify for reuse will be repurposed within the community, thanks to a partnership with Goodwill Alberta.

The eco centres can be accessed through three landfills: East Calgary, Spyhill in the northwest, and Shepard in the southeast.