Questions around transparency and unclear potential for savings ultimately led to the defeat of a proposed city administration plan to combine Calgary’s waste and recycling fees.

The plan, presented to the April 14, 2026, Calgary’s Executive Committee meeting, called for the amalgamation of blue, black and green bin waste and recycling fees into one single fee that would appear on Calgarians’ monthly bills.

The motion was defeated 5-10.

City administration said that the single fee would better represent the integrated nature of the cart service and better represent the cost of delivering cart services, including the shared costs.

They said it also reduces unnecessary complexity in a financial model and improves clarity for customers.

“Overall, the system already operates as an integrated service but not having to separate out the costs into three separate streams… it will result in some efficiency in terms of that administrative piece of the work that we do,” said Julie Radke, director of waste and recycling services.

The admin cover report said that shared costs for the services were allocated to each service as they were rolled out individually between 2009 and 2017. It also accounts for the change in recycling costs since the new Extended Producer Responsibility fees helped reduce blue bin charges to homeowners.

“Although residential cart programs were rolled out individually over several years, they were designed to operate as an integrated waste management service,” read the admin report.

“Operating the cart service as one system has led to efficiencies in service design, operational contingency, and customer education.”

The cover report also indicates that there’s similarity in how cart programs change over time.

“Labour and vehicle costs, for example, apply across the residential cart system and affect each cart program in a similar way,” read the report.

“Moving to one residential cart charge helps to convey these costs more simply and consistently.”

Transparency in Calgary waste and recycling fees a concern for councillors

Ward 12 Coun. Mike Jamieson said he didn’t think it was helping transparency and accountability by shrinking three Calgary waste and recycling fees into one.

“I think that it actually makes things less transparent, because people now they don’t really know what they’re paying anymore, at least right now, they can kind of see it,” he said.

“Lumping all this together just seems like maybe the city, they’re maybe trying to hide something. And I’m not accusing you of that, but that is how some people see these kinds of changes.”

Radke said that showing it in three different streams feels more artificial.

“By showing it as an overall that then allows us to really better articulate what those shared costs are across all three services in a way that’s more clear,” she told councillors.

Still, other councillors had concerns about how murky the charge may be to citizens, particularly if there are proposed increases to the fees.

“If you have to increase the fee and it’s lumped together, Calgarians will want to know is the black, the blue (bin) or the green that’s causing this,” said Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness.

She’s also worried that the need for more communication, whether through mail inserts or other campaigns, will eat into the potential savings. While city admin pitched a potential efficiency and savings associated with the change, they couldn’t pinpoint how much it would save. She called it their hypothesis.

Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson said that there needs to be a shift in terms of how Calgarians view the entire waste and recycling stream. While it was introduced over an eight-year timeframe, it’s been nearly 10 years since the three have operated and been integrated together.

“We need to stop, sort of, portioning them out and pitting them against each other,” he said.

“Waste is waste, and we need to encourage people to use the green cart first, the blue cart second, and the black cart third, because you’re paying for that holistic service. When we change the mentality by bundling it together, as I think this proposal does, I think that actually moves us in the right direction.”

Mayor Jeromy Farkas said that having the granularity in the three streams was worthwhile.

“I believe that amalgamating this and having one single bill payment is trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist,” he said.

“If anything, I’d like to see us go in a different direction as far as having more granularity in terms of the value that Calgarians are getting for other service lines like police or fire and all the rest that they get.”

There was further discussion on waste and recycling moving to a fully self-supported service instead of a tax-supported service.

Councillors also touched on multi-family service delivery and usage-based fees for these services, as they vary from family to family.