Your garbage collection fees could rise nearly $6 by 2030, city report shows

Your garbage bill is heading up. Calgary's city council executive committee will consider a proposal Monday to raise residential waste collection fees by $1.45 per year from 2027 through 2030, totalling a $5.80 increase over four years.

That brings your combined monthly cost for black (garbage), blue (recyclables) and green (organics) carts to $26.31 by 2030, up from the current $20.51. The increase represents roughly 6 per cent annually.

Breaking it down: the black cart fee climbs from $7.71 to $9.67 per month; the blue cart from $2.17 to $2.81 (though a new provincewide recycling policy already cut blue-cart fees by $7 this year); and the green cart from $10.63 to $13.83.

All three fees appear on your monthly Enmax bill. In April, council rejected a request to consolidate the three into a single charge, stating the separation maintains financial transparency.

The city spends $30 million annually on black-cart collection, $43 million on blue-cart, and $49 million on green-cart. It receives $32 million per year from the province through an Extended Producer Responsibility policy, leaving a net annual budget of $92 million. Currently, property taxes cover 4.5 per cent of that ($8.8 million); the city's stated goal is full cost recovery through user fees by 2030.

The proposed increases address rising disposal costs — the landfill basic sanitary rate, unchanged for the last decade, would rise $5 per tonne in 2027 from $113 per tonne. The garbage tag fee remains $3 through 2030, as does the $25 minimum landfill charge (mostly applied to residential customers bringing excess waste).

The city cited inflation, growth, and higher industry costs as drivers. Additional investments will fund more collection trucks, facilities, landfill cells, front-line staff, updated composting equipment, processing infrastructure, and environmental control systems to meet regulatory requirements and support odour reduction near waste facilities.