From the City of Red Deer:

Starting today, Monday, March 18, Blue and Black Carts will begin to be rolled out to homes who currently receive individual garbage, recycling and Green Cart collection. The Blue Cart replaces the blue box, and the Black Cart is for all other household garbage. Together, with the Green Cart, it completes Red Deer’s cart program implementation.

Delivering Blue and Black Carts to residents across Red Deer will take approximately five weeks to complete, with delivery starting the week of March 18, and continuing through mid-April.

Cart collection begins the week of May 6, on your regular waste collection day.

“When carts arrive to the front of residents homes, they will come with an education package that will cover what goes where, how to set out carts for collection and which carts you should be putting out each week,” said Janet Whitesell, Waste Management Superintendent. “If residents are at home during delivery, City staff will be available to answer any questions about the two new carts as well.”

While Blue and Black Carts will be dropped off to the front homes, carts will be collected in the same location where households currently set out their garbage, recycling and Green Cart for collection, front or back.

Collection for the Blue and Black Cart will take place every other week, on alternating weeks beginning the week of May 6, 2019.

That means garbage will be collected one week and recycling collected the next week.

Green Cart collection remains weekly.

Residents will receive a colour coded calendar to make keeping track easy, or they can sign up for weekly notifications through Notify Red Deer (reddeer.ca/notifyreddeer).

The Blue Cart will replace the current blue box, and in general, everything that used to go in the blue box can go in the Blue Cart, with the exception of glass.

Place paper, cardboard, metal cans and plastics numbered one through seven in the Blue Cart.

The Black Cart is for anything that can’t go in the Blue or Green Cart, which in general is things like Styrofoam, disposable diapers, and unnumbered plastics.

More information will be included with your carts, and always available at reddeer.ca/carts.

“We are very excited to be rolling out Blue and Black Carts to residents, completing the cart program for our community,” said Whitesell. “The three cart system will streamline waste collection, and reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill by diverting organics and recyclables. We encourage residents to get acquainted with their carts, figure out what goes in each cart, and try to utilize them to their full potential.”