The Town of Okotoks will be shifting its waste management schedule starting next May.
All three waste collection services — black (garbage), green (organics) and blue (recycling) carts — will transition to biweekly pickup next year following the approval of amendments to the Town's 2025 budget.
It's a decision based on "efficiencies and cost savings," explained Mayor Tanya Thorn.
According to the Town, the average household can expect bimonthly savings of $18.44 per billing period, or annual savings of $110.64, through the utility fee restructuring.
As part of the change, the standard 120-litre carts will be phased out and replaced with 240-litre ones, which tend to be more durable and hold up better, said Thorn.
"We're at that space in the life cycle of our black carts that they need to be replaced... we will be replacing them with 240-litres, so they'll still have the same amount of garbage capacity. We're just going to pick them up every second week," she said.
Black and blue carts are currently picked up weekly year-round, while green carts are picked up weekly from April to the end of October and biweekly from November to the end of March.
The Town had studied biweekly pickup of black bins in 2018 with a pilot project in the Mountainview and Woodhaven neighbourhoods.
The move is also being made in light of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a program that shifts recycling costs from residents and municipalities to manufacturers. The Government of Alberta, which passed legislation to implement the program in 2022, aims to enhance environmental responsibility among producers, promote sustainable product design and shift the burden of waste management.
"The EPR program that goes into effect [in April of 2025] was the impetus for us to look at re-evaluating our entire waste collection stream," said Thorn.
"Alberta is one of the last provinces to implement this... so from my perspective, Albertans have been paying twice because they paid a recycling cost and they're paying for that same recycling cost in a lot of products that are sold across the country."
Through the implementation of the EPR, the Town will be paid to pick up recycling carts on the behalf of producers, resulting in the removal of associated recycling costs on utility bills.
The Town of Diamond Valley is also switching to biweekly collection next spring.
