How green is Saskatoon? City Hall has the answer

How much garbage is going to the landfill? How clean is the air in Saskatoon?

All these questions and more are answered in a new online reporting tool launched by the City of Saskatoon.

The website tracks data on everything from recycling to water quality, comparing numbers year over year.

"(It) identifies trends of improving, stable or needs improvement," said Director of Environmental and Corporate Initiatives Brenda Wallace in a news release. "Additional indicators will be included in future online updates, and new data will be posted as it is made available."

Key Highlights

• Garbage: The amount of garbage each resident is sending heading to the landfill is going down. In 2014, each person sent 249 kilograms of garbage to the landfill. That number has been going down since 2007.
• Recycling: The amount of waste being diverted from the landfill is relatively steady over the years at around 20 per cent. However, it's a long way off from the City's waste diversion target of roughly 70 per cent by 2023.
• Air Quality: Saskatoon's average air quality index has been ranked as good for the past five years, but is showing a 'slow downward trend' over the last decade.
• Transportation choices: The percentage of residents choosing to walk, cycle or take transit to work has been relatively stable between 11.5% and 14.4 % for the past two decades.

Click here for a link to the page.