The Foothills Regional Landfill will be extending their hours from April 18th to June 30th.

Landfill Manager Joe Angevine says people can bring small residential loads and leaf and yard waste from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm Monday through Thursday to avoid the Saturday rush.

"This will be the third year that we've done this. Initially we were trying to give people an option so they don't all have to come out on Saturdays to the site. Some of our Saturdays in the summertime get up to 700 loads. So we're trying to give people who work until five o'clock an option during the week, so they can avoid the Saturday lineups."

He says in the past extended hours has been a successful way to cut down lineups.

"It's worked out pretty well. We try to keep our lineups down below 500. We find that anything over 500 and it starts to back up and people get frustrated, people get angry. Last year with the extended hours we only had about two or three days where we exceeded 500 loads in a day."

Angevine says he also wants to make sure people are watching for wind closures.

"What happens is anytime the wind exceeds 60 km/hr, it becomes pretty dangerous out here when people are unloading wood and sheet metal and stuff like that and it's flying around the site. So we've had two times where we've actually shut the site down and we're just trying to get word out that if it's a windy day, just to check the MD of Foothills website before they come out."

Angevine says things are already starting to pick up, with almost 500 loads last Saturday.

He says the extended hours are for small residential loads only, and not commercial loads.