Recycling

Victoria Park Garage Facility

The City of Calgary has set a corporate objective to reduce the amount of waste generated and sent to the landfills. This includes recycling 80% of the City’s waste by the year 2020. Calgary Transit is committed to meeting this goal by implementing a variety of cost-effective waste diversion programs that follows the fundamentals of the 3R’s.

Reduce, Reuse & Recycle
One of the challenges of The Calgary Transit’s ongoing environmental programs is the managing of the 3R’s from a variety of products used throughout the operations. Calgary Transit as had a traditional recycling program for decades, focusing on two of the four R’s (reuse & recycle) and has included:

• Used oil and filters
• Paints and solvents
• Recycling metals
• Batteries
• Rebuilding and reusing parts off vehicles and other equipment

More recently these programs have further expanded to include:

• Using 100% recycled paper in our office printing and photocopying
• Newspaper and cardboard
• Vehicle antifreeze
• Fluorescent tubes
• Aerosol Cans
• Paints and other solvents
• Plastics

Calgary Transit is always looking at further ways to improve on it’s waste diversion program specifically looking at ways to reduce material consumption such as:

• Using rechargeable batteries in place of one use alkaline batteries
• Use of longer lasting more energy efficient lights
• Eliminating hazardous chemicals in the workplace with less hazardous and more environmental friendly products
• Practice of purchasing in bulk and returning the containers for reuse to the suppliers
• Replacement of clay based absorbent to more effective peat moss based materials.

Dry Cell Battery Recycling

Batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium and nickel that can contaminate the environment when improperly disposed in a landfill site. In 2005 Calgary Transit used approximately 11,000 batteries. Over the last few years Dry Cell Battery Recycling Containers have been placed throughout the facilities and staff have been encouraged recycle all of Calgary Transit’s batteries. In the first year alone over 400 kg of batteries were collected and recycled. The focus now is to reduce the overall consumption with many of Calgary Transit sections standardizing on the size of batteries being used and moving towards using rechargeable batteries. By using rechargeable batteries it not only saves on consumption, but also on recycling costs and most importantly reduces the environmental impact associated with manufacturing new batteries.

Water Recycling

Reducing the consumption of water in our bus wash is one of the initiatives Calgary Transit has taken to minimize the use of our natural resources. Calgary Transit installed a bus wash at its Springs Garden facility that recycles the wastewater.

Using water recycling technology, solids are removed from the wastewater by a centrifuge. This system allows approximately 95% of the wastewater to be recycled, resulting in annual water savings of approximately 2.2 million liters.

Newspaper/Cardboard and paper Recycling

Calgary Transit has a long history of recycling vehicle fluids such as used oil, antifreeze, greases and other materials that are used in its operations. To further expand on these successful recycling programs, Calgary Transit completed a Waste Review in 2004, to determine what further improvements could be made to this system. One key item that was identified was an opportunity to further increase the amount of paper and cardboard recycling. In just four years Calgary Transit increased its paper and cardboard recycling by over 130 per cent, by making a few small changes, increasing the number of recycling bins, reviewing work practices and educating staff on the options available for recycling. As impressive as these numbers are, further opportunity exists to improve this program. Calgary Transit will be working to purchase more recycled content in its paper products and to reduce its paper use where practical.