A new City of Edmonton report on waste management is calling for an overhaul of recycling as well as a ban on single-use plastics.
Edmonton’s new zero-waste strategy will ask homeowners to sort their garbage into one of four coloured bins, one each for garbage, recycling, organics, and yard waste.
"Regardless of where your work, live or play, you'll feel this in some way," said Mike Labrecque with the City of Edmonton Waste Services. "A machine can't do what 480 thousand households can do when it comes to separating waste."
The report calls for the change to be put in place by 2022, noting similar systems are in use by many other cities. It's a change that advocates say will immediately improve the efficiency of the city’s waste management system.
"If you go back years ago [Edmonton] was actually a leader," said Sean Stepchuk with Waste Free Edmonton. "But, things have changed since then and we have to change with it."
The report calls for that change to be implemented by 2022.
The City is also seeking a single-use plastics ban in place by 2021, which mirrors the current federal government’s effort to ban the products by the same year.
"We're not reinventing the wheel here, it's been done before," said Stepchuk.
The report will be presented to the utility committee next week.
With files from Timm Bruch
