Two Clean-ups in May
May is again our month for clean-ups! This year the Annual Pathway and River Cleanup will happen on Saturday, May 2. The Crescent Heights Community Cleanup is set for Sunday, May 17. We can always use extra hands at these events, so if you can lend a hand for either or both of them, please contact us at assist[email protected] or [email protected].
2026 Pathway and River Clean-up
This year’s Pathway and River Cleanup is scheduled over a three-day window from May 1 to 3. We have settled upon Saturday, May 2 from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, so we’ll hope for continued good weather and meet by the river on Saturday.
Our river reach is from 4th Street NE to Centre Street, River Left, or the near (north) bank of the Bow. We hope to see some of our regulars out on the pathway. Crescent Heights has been tackling this river reach for more than 20 years! Let us know if you can join us and we can get a sense of our numbers for securing supplies. We’ll meet down by the river at the Reconciliation Bridge and work our way westward to Centre Street.
2026 Crescent Heights Community Clean-up May 10 or May 17 (TBD)
The date for our very popular annual Crescent Heights Community Cleanup is not yet set but should go ahead on Sunday May 10 or May 17 from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm. If you can volunteer for the clean-up, we can certainly use your help, and being on site gives you the first pick of the Free Store’s treasures (see below). The City recommends having 15 to 20 volunteers on site, as community clean-up events are increasingly popular and draw people from across the city. The more people we have to direct traffic and activity on site, the better our traffic flow and cycle time will be.
We will contact our third-party vendors to make arrangements to accept metals and electronics as we have in past years, plus gently used household items for the Women in Need Society (WINS).
What’s the Same for 2026?
Same place: CHCA Community Hall, enter from 2nd street NW at 11th avenue; packer trucks will be positioned to accept household waste and stuff that may not fit in your black cart. Volunteers will be on hand to direct the traffic flow and keep things moving. Remember to stream recyclables to your blue cart or to a neighbourhood depot so we’re not sending recyclable materials to a landfill. Similarly, yard waste and organics should be disposed of through the green cart program or the City’s Spring Yard Waste Program. Hazardous waste products (paints, chemicals, etc.) should be disposed of at a designated firehall or landfill equipped for those materials. No concrete rubble can be accepted because it damages the equipment. No glass, please! No barbeques, microwave ovens, and no batteries. Make sure your load is properly secured and tarped en route to the hall. Please be prepared to unload your own materials: volunteers will be on hand but only to manage the traffic flow on site. City staff are there only to operate the equipment. Unload as quickly as you can to keep things moving. And please don’t bring materials and drop them before or after the event, we’ll be watching!
The Free Store will be in operation once again to help gently used items with life left in them find new homes. Goods that are not claimed will be loaded into the trucks in the last half-hour of the event. If you can help with this effort, please come to the site around 1:30 pm to help us clean up and close up.
Our event runs from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm, but we will be monitoring our traffic volume and flow and may have to cut the line off at about 1:30 pm to get the last vehicles through the site by 2:00, so we are not keeping our trusted City staff past their time: remember that they are volunteering their time too!
Can’t wait for May? The city-wide Community Clean-up program kicks off in April, and events are scheduled at different communities across the city in the spring, summer, and autumn. Bear in mind that the Cleanups are increasingly popular and some events involve significant wait time to unload. Visit the website below for dates, times and locations:
https://www.calgary.ca/csps/abs/partnership-programs/community-cleanups.html
Click here to the Crescent Heights Community News home page for the latest Crescent Heights community updates.
