Fort McMurray Forum

The municipality is making a small return on your garbage.

Each week the city ships out tonnes of compressed recyclables to Edmonton, where its sold to manufacturers across the country.

Foreman of Waste Division at the Municipal landfill, William Goodridge, says the process is helping the region's curbside pilot project, break even.

"It's fairly new, everyone is getting on board, it's a bit of learning experience for everyone, but I'm pretty excited about it, because I think this really needs to happen. If we can do a better turn-out of our commodities, so if we're sending our cardboard out of town we can reduce our carbon footprint by shipping a better product, as well as our tin cans and our non recyclables , the less we put in the landfill, the better," said Goodridge.

Curbside recycling is will be offered in all local neighborhoods by Summer's end.

The International Association of Business Communicators has awarded the project their Silver Leaf Award of Merit, recognizing cost reduction and community participation.