Winnipeg Garbage and Recycling: What Goes Where

How curbside collection is organised

The City of Winnipeg provides cart collection service to single-family homes and to properties with seven dwelling units or less, which includes condominiums, apartments and small commercial properties such as small businesses, charities registered with the Canada Revenue Agency, and places of worship. Single-family homes and small commercial properties also receive yard waste service.

Carts are collected every week of the year on your collection day. Put them out by 7 a.m., and report a missed collection if they are still there after 6 p.m. The only days without collection are New Year’s Day, Remembrance Day and Christmas Day. If your collection day falls on or after one of those holidays, put your carts out a day later for that week only.

Carts are assigned to the property rather than to you. Each carries a serial number and an electronic tag so it can be traced to an address, which is why carts stay behind when you move.

What belongs in the recycling cart

The accepted list is narrower than most people assume. Winnipeg takes three categories at the curb: rigid plastic packaging, paper and cardboard, and empty, rinsed containers made of glass, plastic and metal.

How you prepare those items matters as much as what they are. The City asks residents to toss recyclables in separately rather than nested inside one another or inside bags, to flatten cardboard boxes rather than posting them in whole, to empty and rinse food and beverage containers, to squeeze the middle of plastic bottles so they stay stable on the conveyor belts, and to separate the different materials of mixed-material items — removing a boxboard insert from plastic packaging, for example, before both go in.

• Rigid plastic packaging.
• Paper and cardboard, flattened.
• Empty and rinsed glass, plastic and metal containers.
• Empty paper cups of all types are now accepted in curbside and public recycling bins.

What must not go in either cart

Do not put recyclables in plastic bags before they go in the recycling cart, even when the bag packaging claims it is meant for recyclables. Bagged material cannot be sorted and is treated as contamination.

Hazardous items must not go into either cart. That covers aerosols, batteries, electronics, automotive fluids and parts, and household chemicals marked with hazard symbols for corrosive, explosive, poison or flammable contents. Those go to the nearest 4R Winnipeg Depot in their original containers.

If you are unsure about a single item, the City publishes a searchable what-goes-where tool, Recyclepedia, which covers whether something can be recycled, donated, or should go in the garbage.

The 4R Winnipeg Depots

The 4R Winnipeg Depots exist for everything the carts cannot take. There are three. The Brady Road depot at 1825 Brady Road, south of the Perimeter Highway, accepts both recycling and garbage. The Pacific depot at 1120 Pacific Avenue and the Panet depot at 429 Panet Road accept recycling only, with no garbage.

Drop-off is free for items that are recyclable, reusable or compostable. Garbage is accepted only at Brady Road, where the landfill tipping fee applies. The depots are open to Winnipeg residents only and accept only material coming from a resident’s home, and residents unload their own vehicles by hand, including trailers. Small commercial customers who qualify through an application process may also use them, but unapproved commercial or company vehicles are not allowed. Clothing donations are accepted at all three.

• Items can only be dropped off. Customers are not allowed to take items from the depots.
• Community recycling depots accept the same materials as at-home recycling and are open 24 hours a day, year round, but they take blue-cart items only.
• Community depots do not accept yard waste, styrofoam, appliances, furniture, construction materials, household hazardous waste or garbage.

Yard waste is a separate, seasonal stream

Every cart collection customer also receives yard waste collection, which runs from spring through autumn and is weather dependent. Yard waste is collected once every two weeks on your regular collection day, and it has to be set out in one of three containers: a reusable container without a lid, a cardboard box, or a brown paper yard waste bag. Containers must weigh no more than 22 kilograms.

Accepted yard waste includes grass clippings, leaves, plants, crab apples, undecorated pumpkins and small tree branches. Branches must be bundled and cut to no more than 10 centimetres in diameter and one metre in length. Yard tools, toys and plant pots do not belong in the stream, and larger branches or tree stumps go to a 4R Winnipeg Depot instead.

Collected yard waste is composted at the Brady Road Resource Management Facility. The compost produced meets Category A standards under the CCME Guideline for Compost Quality, is used for landscaping at City facilities, and some is given away to residents at the annual compost giveaway.

Looking up your collection day

Winnipeg publishes a collection day lookup that takes an address and returns the schedule for that property. The same address tool is what the City expects you to use before reporting a missed collection, because the schedule is area-based rather than uniform across the city.

For everything else — cart repairs, a missing or damaged cart, a change of cart size, or persistent collection problems — the City routes residents through 311. If you are physically unable to put your carts out, the City offers a walk-up collection service with conditions attached, and cart size upgrades are available for an annual fee.

• Find your collection day: the City’s address lookup tool.
• Check whether an item is recyclable: Recyclepedia, the City’s what-goes-where search.
• Report a cart problem or a missed collection: contact 311.