Calgarians invited to pick up free compost

City offers up free compost to gardeners The city is providing free compost to Calgarians to use in their gardens and flower beds.

It’s been nearly a year since Calgary rolled out the green bin program city-wide and now residents will be able to enjoy the fruits, so to speak, of their labour for the 2018 growing season.

On every Saturday during the month of May, residents will be able to collect loads of compost directly from the Calgary Compost Facility, located at 12111 68 Street S.E., between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

All the hard work isn’t over either because those who attend will need to load the material by hand, so you will need to bring a shovel, gloves, containers and a tarp if you plan to load it directly into your trunk or truck bed.

Officials say there is a maximum of 100L per vehicle.

Since the green cart program was brought into effect, the city has diverted over 53 million kilograms of waste from the landfill, exceeding estimates by 30 percent.

Laura Hamilton, a waste diversion specialist with the City of Calgary, says residents have done an amazing job.

“This is really exciting and it’s great to be able to share this result of Calgarians’ hard work.”

She says that the compost is Category A lab-tested and is safe to use for any application.

“You can use it as a top dressing on your lawn or vegetable garden at home.”

Hamilton says the Calgary Compost Facility has been specially designed to cut down on the amount of time it takes for yard waste to break down.

“The facility is very different from your backyard composter where anybody who’s tried it in Calgary, it can take a year or two, whereas here, we have created those ideal conditions where everything happens a little bit quicker. It can go from an apple core to this in less than two months.”

For more information on the free compost event, you can go to the city’s website.