Home › What goes where › Styrofoam
Styrofoam
🗑️
In Calgary, put this in the
Black cart — Garbage
Foam cups, trays and packaging are NOT recyclable in Calgary — place in the black cart.
Also searched as: polystyrene, foam packaging, packing foam, foam cups, foam takeout.
Why the black cart?
Expanded polystyrene is 95% air, so it’s uneconomical to collect and transport for recycling — Calgary’s program doesn’t accept it in the blue cart at all. In the black cart it’s landfilled, so reducing foam at the source is the only real win.
Get it right
- This covers foam cups, meat trays, egg cartons, coolers and moulded packing blocks alike.
- Break big blocks into pieces so they don’t hog cart space.
- Foam in the blue cart is a common, well-meaning mistake — it just gets pulled out as garbage at the sorting line.
Related items
♻️ Plastic jugs🗑️ Plastic cutlery🗑️ Black plastic containers🗑️ Cling wrap🗑️ Chip bags and candy wrappers♻️ Plastic bags and overwrap
Know your pickup days too
Look up your black, blue and green cart collection schedule by address.
Find my collection day