What to do with more than 14 million kilograms of trees?

The numbers keep rising with 14 million kilograms of tree debris from more than 20,000 loads collected from 97 Calgary communities since last month’s snow storm. With the totals adding up, The City of Calgary is determined to keep all tree debris out of the landfills.

“We are turning the destruction of this storm into something positive,” says Dave Griffiths, director of Waste & Recycling Services. “Our plan is to return a lot of it to communities where trees were damaged by providing mulch for our City parks and trails next spring or summer. Some of it may also be used in The City’s composting facility.”

Griffiths says the logistics for distribution of the mulch will be determined over the winter, after the push to collect all tree debris from Calgary communities is over. The end tally will be significant, as the first three weeks of collection has yielded more than seven times the amount of leaves and pumpkins received annually.

Citizens are encouraged to visit calgary.ca for a map that indicates when tree debris removal crews will be in their community. If citizens miss these crews, City landfills will continue to waive fees for loads of tree debris until November 9, 2014. As well, most leaf and pumpkin drop-off locations will continue to accept this type of waste until November 9, 2014.

Landfills have been operating for extended evening hours for the last few weeks but will return to normal hours of 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. starting Monday, October 6, 2014, as the number of people using the landfills after 5 p.m. have dropped significantly.

For more information on The City's response to tree debris clean up and the September snow storm, please vist calgary.ca.