The town is well on its way to their first year sustainability goal of diverting 25% of waste from the landfill.

Just a month into the Universal Recycling Program and the waste services team has seen huge green and blue cart results.

Paul Lyons, waste services manager,  says before curbside pick up the average monthly collection was 5 tonnes of waste but since the program's October 1 start date numbers have definitely multiplied.

"The 5 tonnes that we were collecting was the self haul, the drop off where our residents were coming to the Eco-Center and dropping off their organics but now since we have the cart that is based at the curb last month's figure was 137 tonnes."

Lyons says in order to fulfill the towns goals of 25% diversion in the first year and 80% diversion in total it's important to update the public with these positive results.

"We're hoping within the year we provide enough information to our residents that will help them to see that using this program will prove beneficial."

With these positive results Lyons and the waste services team project that the 47% of town participating in the program will jump up to 80% by the end of the first year.

Lyons says seeing progress this early is a great feeling.

"Personally it is rewarding. I along with the staff here have done a lot of work over the last year and we've seen residents looking at what we are trying to achieve and supporting that and we are thankful. I want to personally say thanks to the community for working with us and to our staff for working this hard to achieve what we have done so far."

If residents have questions the waste services team is happy to help and can be reached at 403-938-2652.

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