Bigger green bins pondered as city continues composting pilot project

The city is exploring the option of using bigger green bins as part of its future composting program.

The current bins being tested in four communities have a capacity of just 120 litres.

That's about half the size of the black and blue carts Calgarians are already using city-wide.

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The smaller bins are causing problems for waste collectors, says green cart program leader Phillipa Wagner.

"The 120-litre carts are not large enough for them to put in a paper yard-waste bag into it," she said.

"And because we don't have a limit to how much material people can put out for collection when their carts are full, then they can use paper yard-waste bags for any excess material."

Wagner says the problem is crews are not able to put those bags into the cart to get them tipped into the truck.

"The bags would have to be manually loaded into our trucks," Wagner said.

The city is now looking into testing 180-litre and 240-litre bins.

The green cart pilot project has been underway since 2012.The goal is to expand the service city-wide by mid-2017.