Where does asbestos go in Calgary?

Every load of asbestos from Calgary and the towns around it ends up in one place: the City’s Shepard Landfill on the southeast edge of town. Not the transfer sites, not the eco centres, not the other regional landfills. Shepard, weekdays, by the rules below. If a contractor quoting your job can’t tell you that in one sentence, ask where the bags are going.

The rules, as the City publishes them

• Where: Shepard Landfill only. Asbestos is refused everywhere else in the City system and at the transfer sites in Airdrie, Cochrane, Chestermere, Rocky View and Wheatland.
• When: Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Closed on holidays. No evenings, no weekends.
• Packaging: the material must be wetted before it is bagged, double-bagged in 6-mil polyethylene, then double-wrapped and sealed with duct tape or similar. Bladders up to 20 cubic yards and bins up to 40 are the recommended maximums for larger loads.
• Condition on arrival: a load with rips, tears or openings in the wrapping is turned away or charged a hard-to-handle surcharge on top of the disposal fee.
• Cost: asbestos is charged at the City’s asbestos rate, which is $220 per tonne from February 2026. Check the City’s landfill rates page for the current figure before you go.

Permits and appointments — who needs them

For a business or a hauler, two more things apply. A City of Calgary Industrial Waste Permit has to be in place — free, valid for up to a year, and the signed copy travels with the load or the load is rejected at the gate. And every asbestos disposal is by appointment, requested by 10 a.m. the business day before. That is how we work: the permit is held, the appointment is booked, and the weight ticket and manifest come back to you.

For a resident disposing of asbestos from their own home, the City’s own page says self-hauled asbestos can be taken directly to Shepard, and its permit and appointment wording is written for businesses. So the honest answer to “can I take it myself?” is: the City will accept it, in the right packaging, in the weekday window. Call 311 before you load the truck to confirm what they want from a resident that week — rules change, and a wasted trip with a load of asbestos in your vehicle is a bad afternoon.

So why do most people still not do it themselves?

Because the landfill is the easy part. Everything before it is the job.

The removal is where the exposure happens. Asbestos is harmless sitting in a ceiling and dangerous the moment it is dry-scraped, pried, swept or vacuumed with a household vacuum. Alberta’s OHS rules are written for workplaces — they don’t stop you working on your own house, but they apply in full to anyone you pay to help, and they exist because the way fibres travel through a home is not intuitive. The bagging rules the landfill enforces at the gate are the last step of a process that starts with containment and negative air, not a roll of poly and a Saturday.

The packaging is stricter than it sounds. Six-mil is contractor-grade poly, not the bags from the hardware store aisle. Wetted, double-bagged, double-wrapped, sealed, with no tears after being carried through a house and driven across the city — and one rip means the load comes home with you or costs extra.

It travels in your vehicle. A pickup bed or an SUV with the seats down, then that vehicle is yours again on Monday.

There is no paperwork in your name. This is the one people don’t think about until later. A buyer’s inspector, an insurer on a claim, or the City when you sign the asbestos abatement information form on a pre-1990 house will ask how the material was removed and where it went. A contractor’s manifest and a Shepard weight ticket answer that in two pieces of paper. A personal trip does not.

What you should get from any contractor

Whoever does the work, the deliverable at the end is the same: a copy of the waste manifest and the landfill weight ticket, showing the date, the weight and Shepard as the destination. Keep both with the lab report. Together they are the proof that the job was done — for the sale, the permit, or the day someone asks. If a quote doesn’t include that, the price is not comparable to one that does.

Our disposal is built into every removal price on the pricing page, and the waste line is never a surprise at the end. If you already have material bagged and just need it gone, call (403) 477-2281 and we will tell you straight whether it is a job for us or a trip you can make yourself.