One of the most troublesome packaging materials will find a new home with a new City of Calgary pilot project.
Calgary’s Waste and Recycling Services started a Styrofoam collection program on May 13 allowing Calgarians to easily and efficiently recycle their Styrofoam packaging. The pilot will run for the next six months as a residential pilot project.
Calgary residents can use the program by either taking their Styrofoam to any one of the city’s three landfills and depositing it in the designated areas at the landfill or by placing their Styrofoam that is free of food residue, labels or glue and tape in the black garbage bins located outside of homes.
Elias Tomaras, Project Manager, Special Projects, said the new recycling program can make more useful space within the landfill.
“So that we know that approximately one per cent of what ends up in our landfills is Styrofoam packaging. So, obviously we’re not going to get 100 per cent of that one per cent. But the more of that material that we do get and keep out of the landfill, it just sort of preserves that valuable landfill space,” he said.
“The pilot project is free for residential customers. If they’re bringing in only Styrofoam. If they bring in mix floats or other garbage materials, for example, they will pay the regular fees during the pilot.”
Once enough Styrofoam arrives at the landfill a local company, Styro-Go, will pick up the foam and transport it to their facility, he said. Once there, the Styrofoam will get melted into a conveniently sized square, which makes it more economical to be used for material to create new products.
Tomaras said it’s important that the Styrofoam packaging is not placed in the blue bin that’s typically used for recycling. When the foam packaging is placed in the collection vehicles, the foam gets compacted and creates lots of small debris and pieces of Styrofoam.
The team at Waste and Recycling Services will continue to monitor the program’s success.
“So, we’ll see after the six months in terms of whether or not it does make sense to continue forward, but we have the option to extend the contract and continue the Styrofoam packaging, and recycling,” he said.
The recycled Styrofoam product can be used to make new materials like children’s car seat padding, or bicycle helmets.
