Leloup and Bury: Don’t let Ontario set fire to its own recycling plan
The province is loosening the rules that aim to make companies limit the environmental impacts of their product packaging. It’s a step backwards.
By Valérie Leloup, Duncan Bury Ottawa Citizen July 02, 2025
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/ontario-recycling-plan
Just as Ontario’s long-awaited recycling reforms begin to take root, Queen’s Park is preparing to gut them.
The province’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) program was designed to make companies accountable for the environmental impacts of their packaging and to shift the cost of managing that waste away from municipalities and onto the producers themselves. This long-overdue change was meant to drive companies to cut down on excess packaging and ensure their products are designed for real-world recyclability.
But now, under pressure from industry, the provincial government is proposing to walk back these commitments. The proposed changes are a step in the wrong direction — one that threatens to undermine the credibility and effectiveness of the entire recycling system.
One of the biggest threats is a proposed five-year delay in enforcing recycling targets. Originally slated to kick in by 2026, these mandatory targets — for example 80 per cent for paper or 50 per cent for rigid plastics — would now be postponed until 2031. These aren’t arbitrary numbers. They were set to hold companies accountable, encourage packaging innovation, and help Ontario move toward a circular economy.
The proposed amendments don’t stop there
The government is also planning to allow up to 15 per cent of a producer’s recycling target to be met through incineration: burning non-recyclable waste and calling it recycling.
This isn’t just a loophole. It’s a fundamental distortion of what “recycling” means.
The most recent Canadian Standards Association (CSA) guidance — CSA R117:24, Plastics Recycling: Definitions, Reporting, and Measuring — was published on Nov. 22, 2024, and provides an authoritative definition of recycling in Canada. It defines recycling as:
“The processing of waste materials to produce secondary materials from which new products are made.”The standard explicitly excludes energy recovery processes such as incineration, often called “waste-to-energy,” from being counted as recycling.
Taken together, these measures represent a serious weakening of Ontario’s recycling system, just as municipalities are stepping up efforts to boost public participation in waste diversion.
Here in Ottawa, the city is actively implementing its Solid Waste Master Plan, rolling out waste separation in public parks and conducting outreach in multi-unit residential buildings to improve sorting and reduce landfill waste.
Ontarians care about the environment, and they want to see action, not excuses. They expect their governments to stand by the principles that inspired EPR in the first place: clear responsibility, enforceable standards, and a genuine push toward waste reduction and recyclabili
Concerned citizens have until this Friday, July 4, to speak up. Comments on the government’s proposed changes can be submitted at the Environmental Registry of Ontario: ero.ontario.ca/notice/025-0009.
Public pressure matters; now is the time to use it.
Valérie Leloup is co-founder and CEO of NU Grocery and strategic lead for waste and circular economy at EnviroCentre. Duncan Bury is the co-founder of Waste Watch Ottawa.
TRAIL ROAD LANDFILL CAPACITY AND LIFE EXPECTANCY PROJECTIONS
June 19, 2025
TO CLEARLY UNDERSTAND THE CAPACITY AND LIFE EXPECTANCY OF THE TRAIL ROAD FACILITY WASTE WATCH OTTAWA HAS PREPARED THE FOLLOWING TABLE USING DATA PROVIDED BY THE SOLID WASTE DIVISION:
| Additional years | Projected closure | Years to closure | |
| Current closure / capacity forecast | 2034 – 2035 | 9 – 10 years | |
| Recent SWMP actions -Waste to private sites -Ban on ICI waste -3 item limit | + 6 years | 2040 – 2041 | 15 – 16 years |
| Expansion within current boundaries -New lift -EA process well underway -Submission to MECP for approval Q4 2025 | + 15 years | 2055 – 2056 | 30 – 31 years |
| Beyond the SWMP e.g. -New programs -Collection limits | ? | 2055 – 2056 + | ? |
Source: Waste Management Technologies Feasibility Study, Staff Report, Environment and Climate Change Committee, June 17, 2025, pages 7, 14 and 15
WITH LANDFILL CAPACITY PROJECTED UNTIL THE MID 2050s THE CITY HAS TIME TO AGRESSIVELY WORK ON WASTE REDUCTION AND DIVERSION AND ALL THE POLICIES AND PROGRAMS SET OUT IN THE SOLID WASTE MASTER PLAN. APPROVAL OF THE EXPANSION AT TRAIL WITHIN THE CURRENT SITE BOUNDARIES IS NOT GUARANTEED AT THE MOMENT BUT TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY HAS BEEN CONFIRMED, THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE TO THE LANDFILL FOOTPRINT AND THE SITE MEETS ENGINEERING AND ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS.
GIVEN THE LIKELIHOOD OF APPROVAL OF THE TRAIL ROAD EXPANSION THERE IS A VERY HIGH PROBABILITY THAT OTTAWA WILL END UP IN THE ENVIABLE POSITION OF HAVING 30 YEARS OF LANDFILL CAPACITY AND AN IMPROVED CHANCE TO BUILD TOWARDS ZERO WASTE AND CIRCULAR ECONOMY GOALS.
A PATH FORWARD WITH NO INCINERATION
March 26, 2025
The final major piece of Ottawa’s Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP) which was adopted by Council in June 2024 will soon see the light of day. A study led by HDR Consultants reviewing incineration, mixed waste processing and landfill for the management of residual waste left after recycling and green bin collection and other waste diversion strategies and programs is nearing completion.
To prepare councillors for the release of the study and to specifically help them better understand the problems and challenges associated with waste incineration, WWO with support from Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES), Ecology Ottawa and Prevent Cancer Now met with councillors at City Hall on March 26. The presentation identified the major questions and realities that need to be thought about when considering any pending decision on a residual waste management strategy.
The briefing paid particular attention to incineration which has always been the most expensive option for the management of Ottawa’s waste at over $500 million for a conventional mass burn plant similar to the one operated by Durham and York Regions east of Toronto. Incinerators come with air emissions issues, GHG concerns and generate flue and furnace ash that require special treatment and disposal. Incinerators require guaranteed quantities of waste to be delivered and operational contracts and policies create disincentives for alternative waste diversion strategies and programs.
Key Questions
A major outcome of the SWMP was the planned extension of the Trail Facility capacity and life expectancy to 2048. The presentation concluded with the following questions:
- Is there a need, presently or before 2034, to make a major capital decision on incineration, mixed waste processing or a new landfill?
- Can the City afford very high costs of an incinerator? Why select the most expensive option?
- Is there enough effort being made to divert organics and reduce landfill methane GHG?
- Is the current 3 item collection limit sufficient to drive recyclables and organics out of the waste stream?
In answer to all of the above questions Waste Watch Ottawa says NO.
- No, there is no need to make a decision on residuals management before 2034 at the earliest
- No, the City cannot afford and does not need to invest over half a billion dollars in an incinerator – the most expensive and environmentally problematic way to manage waste
- No, the City is not making enough effort to take organics out of the garbage and diverting it into either a composting or an anaerobic digestion plant.
- No, the current 3 item garbage limit is ineffective in encouraging more use of the blue and black box and green bin program. A 2 item limit is what is needed and is what City Solid Waste staff recommended.
Rather than leaping into a plan for an incinerator or a new landfill the City needs to:
- Aggressively target and divert organics from disposal
- Focus attention on recyclables and problematic materials not covered by the blue / black box program – e.g. textiles, mattresses, construction waste
- Get its house in order – e.g. recycling and organics collection in parks and other City facilities; increase promotion and education
- Put in a real user pay program and replace the 3 item limit with a 2 item limit
- Complete the Trail Road landfill expansion and view the facility as an irreplaceable high value asset
- Monitor and report more regularly
- Aim for major re-assessment of SWMP and residuals management around 2034
JUNE 17, 2024
THE CITY NEEDS TO UP ITS GAME TO IMPLEMENT THE SOLID WASTE MASTER PLAN
After more than four years of community engagement and dozens of reports and background documents the City’s Solid Waste Master Plan is being presented to City Council for approval on June 26. For all that the SWMP is a remarkably anaemic document hobbled by a seriously restricted ability to fund its implementation over the short and medium term.
Council needs to up its game to ensure that we can extend landfill life even further than currently envisioned. However, because of a lack of financial resources it will take some years before real action on the Plan comes to fruition. The Plan is full of commitments to develop strategic plans and pilots for particular Plan elements rather than actual program implementation. Programs to collect textiles and manage home construction waste are going to have to wait while Trail Road continues to fill with more waste than necessary.
Solid Waste staff report that the Solid Waste reserve fund is in a deficit position of $25 million and that it requires balancing and investment to support future capital investments. Even without implementing any of the 25 SWMP action areas the cost of solid waste services will need to go up to meet regulatory requirements. There is also a need for major capital investment in organic waste processing upon the end of the current composting contract in 2030.
The City has acted in the past year to extend the life of the Trail Road landfill to 2048 by filling in parts of the current site and by restricting commercial waste. Further reducing waste and otherwise diverting it from disposal will require new capital and program investment. The Plan states that to facilitate full implementation annual per household spending needs to increase from the current average annual household rate of $185 to $365 in 2034. The rate change will be phased in over a decade to allow time for building the necessary financial reserves.
With the exception of the launching of the curbside green bin program the sad reality is that over many years solid waste finances, policy and programs have been neglected by City Council. We now have to play catch up. Data from the SWMP shows that Ottawa spends significantly less per household on waste than comparable municipalities such as Edmonton, Toronto, Peel Region and Vancouver. This low level of spending is not a measure of efficiency or effectiveness. It is a measure of neglect and demonstrates a lack of long term financial and program planning. If we had been investing in solid waste like many others we would have a much higher waste diversion from disposal rate, far less recyclable materials and organics in our garbage and we would have a significantly longer life expectancy at the Trail Road landfill.
Given how essential and important management of solid waste is, surely we can do better. It is remarkable that the City is so ill prepared at the moment to aggressively launch the SWMP action areas to reduce our reliance on landfill disposal. The answer is to more aggressively roll out the changes to the solid waste fee and to draw on resources from elsewhere in the City’s budget to roll out the 25 Plan action areas much more quickly. The roll out of green bins to multi-residential buildings will take another 4 years. It’s time to pick up the pace.
Stronger commitment from Council, more resources in the short and medium term and managing Trail Road as a possibly irreplaceable piece of infrastructure are essential if the zero waste vision that is the cornerstone of the SWMP is to become a reality.
OTTAWA CITIZEN OP ED JUNE 19, 2024
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/is-ottawas-solid-waste-plan-a-waste-of-time-opinion
FINAL ROUND OF CONSULTATION ON THE SOLID WASTE MASTER PLAN
February 7, 2024
The City has just launched a final round of consultation on the draft Solid Waste Master Plan which was released in October last year. Details on the consultation which will be conducted through 4 face to face open houses and 2 virtual sessions can be found at:
The open houses and virtual sessions will be an important opportunity to discuss and learn about the key issues that confront the City in the development of a sustainable waste management strategy for the next 30 years. Those issues include:
- Waste reduction and reuse
- Recycling
- Management of special wastes such as textiles and construction materials
- Green bin and organics including service to multi-residential properties
- Promotion and education for waste reduction and diversion of waste from disposal
- Fostering a zero waste culture
- Management of residual wastes left after reduction, reuse and diversion into recycling and the green bin program
- Operational and capital budgets to support the Solid Waste Master Plan implementation
Sadly a promised long term financial plan for the SWMP has not been completed. We therefore do not know the relative operational or capital costs of the wide range of options presented. We also are left to ask questions about the GHG implications of the various options. Critical information on the relative costs of enhancing the diversion of waste from disposal versus landfilling or incinerating residual is not available at the present time although this information is supposed to be released in the spring before the final decision on the SWMP is presented to Council.
We do however have some high level estimates that suggest that the capital cost of an incinerator to handle an estimated 185,000 tonnes of waste per year would be in the order of $500 million and a landfill in the order of $400 million.
To assist with a decision on how to manage residuals the City has committed to a study to review waste to energy and mixed waste processing compared to traditional landfilling. This is not supposed to be complete until 2025 which means that a key component of the SWMP is still missing.
Given that the SWMP exercise has been underway for almost 4 years it is puzzling that two key components – a financial analysis of the options and a residuals management review – are not available as the City embarks on a final public consultation exercise.
Waste Watch Ottawa urges people to attend open houses and virtual sessions to make sure your opinions are heard.
DRAFT SOLID WASTE MASTER PLAN: PAY ME NOW OR PAY ME MUCH MORE LATER
OCTOBER 28, 2023
Solid waste planning is a bit like the 1970’s Fram oil filter advertisement that Bruce Deachman cited in his September 2nd article, “Trash Mountain.” Pay a small amount to replace the oil filter regularly, or pay much more later to get your engine re-built.
Ottawa’s draft Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP), which will be tabled for discussion at the November 21 meeting of the City’s Environment and Climate Change Committee, needs to focus on replacing the filter rather than buying a new engine. In order to postpone the need for either a new landfill or an incinerator to manage residual waste, The City needs to up its game and implement a wide variety of initiatives to reduce and divert waste from disposal rather than launching prematurely into a very expensive, controversial, environmentally problematic and lengthy process to site a new landfill or to burn our garbage.
Ottawa spends much less on managing waste than comparable municipalities. Sadly not enough effort or priority has been given to waste reduction or diversion, and this must change if the SWMP is to be successful. Other municipalities spend more money on organics collection, promotion and education and special programs targeting problematic wastes such as textiles and bulky items.
Ottawa’s low spending is in no way a sign of efficiency nor good value for money. It is a sign that the City has cruised on the assumption that we have a large landfill with lots of capacity and a long time horizon. We urgently need to address the problem that almost 60% of what is currently collected for disposal should either be recycled or composted. The closure date for the Trail Road landfill is now in sight. Unless things change it is due to close as early as 2036, 13 years from now.
In July 2021 City Council committed to a zero waste future. This means reducing waste and maximizing reuse, recycling and composting. To support a zero waste strategy Trail Road should be managed as an essential and possibly irreplaceable piece of municipal infrastructure. Priority should be given to everything that will extend the landfill’s capacity and life expectancy. Council should commit as soon as possible to a wide range of lower cost waste diversion programs to avoid really big costs later. Starting in 2024 and over the coming years the City must increase the inadequate solid waste budget and spend on initiatives such as aggressively rolling out green bins in multi-residential properties.
A new landfill or an incinerator could cost as much as $450 million. The City and taxpayers will be challenged to find this kind of money given other current and foreseeable capital budget pressures.
City Council’s failure to understand the challenges we face was sadly and starkly evident with the recent decision not to implement a minor charge for additional trash going to landfill. Bag/tag user pay systems are proven to drive higher participation in recycling, green bin and leaf and yard waste programs, resulting in reduced garbage pick-up and extending landfill capacity, with only a small impact on municipal budgets. The lack of a user pay system means that the City is going to be fighting to extend the life of the Trail Waste Facility with one hand tied behind its back.
The draft SWMP has identified a comprehensive list of viable initiatives that are already in place elsewhere which would collectively increase waste diversion and extend the life expectancy of Trail Road. Hopefully the final SWMP will recommend acting on most of them. More importantly Council must recognize the need to spend more over the coming years to support and enhance waste reduction and diversion in order to delay or avoid huge capital expenditures in the future. We pay a bit now or we pay much more later.
OTTAWA CITIZEN OP ED OCTOBER 28, 2023
WHAT’S THE POINT? OTTAWA’S 3 ITEM GARBAGE LIMIT FAILS TO SUPPORT ESSENTIAL WASTE DIVERSION
JUNE 21, 2023
At a critical point in the development of a new Solid Waste Master Plan our Council has ducked its responsibility. It failed to accept the reality that we generate too much garbage and need to do something about it now.
The June 14 Council decision to allow only 3 items of garbage to be picked up bi-weekly starting next year will not be effective. Council showed a lack of political leadership and courage and an amazing lack of concern about the waste management crisis that is bearing down on us. Council failed to adopt a staff recommended 2 item limit bag / tag program similar to ones used successfully for years in 132 rural, suburban, urban, lower and upper tier municipalities across the province. Councillors decided to do virtually nothing to improve Ottawa’s dismal waste diversion and disposal record. The Trail Road landfill will continue to fill with organics and recyclables that should not be in the garbage.
Adopting the so-called compromise limit of 3 garbage bags or items every 2 weeks is a decision to support the status quo. It does little or nothing to promote and incentivize recycling and composting and the diversion of waste from the rapidly filling landfill site.
Eighty five percent of households already put out 3 items or less. So what’s the point? It’s a mirage – all show and no real progress.
The 3 items policy could create the very kind of garbage by-law enforcement challenges that many councillors railed against when arguing against the 2 bag limit and tags for any extra items.
Leadership and commitment by the majority of councillors to improve Ottawa’s poor waste management record was totally missing around the Council table on June 14. In the face of clear and well researched evidence and in the face of positive support for enhanced waste diversion shown in the SWMP’s consultations some councillors decided to challenge the hard data provided by City staff. Maybe that’s what you do when none of the evidence supports ill-considered and ill-informed opposition to a bag / tag program.
The meeting of June 14 will be remembered as an embarrassing day for many around the Council table. Council has ignored thousands of more astute and better informed Ottawa residents who wanted to see action on climate change. Waste is the third largest category of greenhouse gases generated from City operations. Residents recognize that something substantive needs to be done to minimize waste disposal and enhance diversion through recycling and the green bin. Why would we collect and dispose of more waste than we absolutely have to when a bag / tag program would improve recycling and green bin participation and do so at a much lower cost and with a much smaller environmental and climate change footprint than a big new landfill or an incinerator?
City Council threw up its hands and said we don’t care enough about waste to do anything serious about the amount we collect and dispose of. Council’s lack of leadership, lack of commitment to address climate change, unwillingness to heed professional advice and wilful ignorance of practices elsewhere has a price. A price which all Ottawa residents will ultimately pay in the years ahead with increased waste disposal costs and environmental impacts associated with having to manage more residual waste requiring disposal than is necessary.
PEOPLES OFFICIAL PLAN LETTER TO MAYOR AND COUNCILLORS ENDORSES RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A CURBSIDE GARBAGE USER PAY SYSTEM
MAY 31, 2023
The Peoples Official Plan (POP) coalition is composed of over 20 not-for-profit organizations including Waste Watch Ottawa. In a May 25 letter to Mayor Sutcliffe and Clty Councillors the coalition urges support for the partial pay-as-you- throw program and curbside waste diversion policy being recommended for adoption by the City’s solid waste staff as part of the on-going Solid Waste Master Plan.
POP Letter On User Pay Waste Program
WASTE WATCH OTTAWA SUPPORTS SOLID WASTE STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PARTIAL USER PAY PROGRAM FOR CURBSIDE GARBAGE COLLECTION
MAY 5, 2023
At a briefing held on May 4 City Solid Waste Management staff laid out recommendations they will be putting forward to the Environment and Climate Change Committee on June 5 for a partial user pay system for the 300,000 households that have their garbage collected curbside bi-weekly. The aim of the program is to encourage participation in the green bin and blue and black box recycling programs and to reduce the amount of waste that is being disposed of the City’s Trail Road landfill site. PAYT programs have been successfully operating in municipalities in Ontario and elsewhere for over 20 years and Ottawa has been a long standing outlier in not having such a program.
City audits show that 58% of what is currently put out for collection as garbage should be either in the green bin or the recycling program. The majority of households – 75% – put out 2 items of waste for collection. The PAYT program is targeted at the 25% of households which put out more than 2 items and it is these households where the poorest participation in the green bin and recycling programs occurs.
Under the proposed program households would be issued annually 55 tags which would be sufficient to put out the new limit of 2 bags or containers every 2 weeks. All additional items above the limit of 2 would require a tag which would have to be purchased at a price of $3 / tag.
The following story by CBC provides a good overview of what is being proposed:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/bag-tag-system-ottawa-proposed-2024-1.6832152
Waste Watch Ottawa has been a long time proponent of a user pay system and is pleased that a recommendation to adopt the idea in Ottawa is being presented as part of the City’s Solid Waste Master Plan. Confronted with a landfill life expectancy of only 13, and possibly even less years, Ottawa is playing catch up on waste diversion and waste reduction innovation. User pay is not a best practice any longer it is a standard operating practice widely utilized by municipalities and must be put in place by the City if it is serious about addressing our waste management challenges.
A RESPONSE TO COUNCILLOR DAVID BROWN’S CALL TO ADOPT WASTE TO ENERGY INCINERATION
Ottawa Citizen Saturday January 7, 2023 https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/brown-why-ottawa-should-adapt-a-waste-to-energy-plan
January 10, 2023
Landfills do generate significant quantities of methane gas as well as carbon dioxide. In comparison to waste incineration landfill disposal can have a comparatively bigger environmental greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. This is not however an argument for incineration. It is an argument both for removing all organics from landfill disposal and for creating a better organics composting system with a much smaller environmental footprint.
Landfill methane, generated primarily by organic waste, is a more potent GHG than carbon dioxide from combustion. Diverting the organics into a composting or an anaerobic digestion system significantly reduces landfill gas generation.
Furthermore, capping a landfill and installing a landfill gas collection system can significantly reduce fugitive methane emissions. According to the Pembina Institute a landfill which captures 75% of the methane generated produces less GHG than an equivalent incinerator. The City has operated a landfill gas collection system at the Trail Road landfill since 2007 and made major improvements in 2018. While collection system effectiveness can vary from year to year, in 2019 the system recovered 89% of the gas generated.
The cost of an incinerator is indeed a challenge but to claim that “these costs are modest” ignores the financial reality that an incinerator is the most expensive way to dispose of waste.
The last big municipal waste incinerator built in Canada was for Durham and York Regions east of Toronto. It opened in 2015 after 10 years of controversy and start up challenges with construction and permitting costs of $284.2 million and in 2020 reported gross operating costs of $16.8 million. At 2023 prices an equivalent sized incinerator for Ottawa would cost considerably more in capital and life time costs and take years to be approved and built. The suggestion that “efficiencies” can be found to fund a capital investment of at least a third of a billion dollars stretches credulity.
Using municipal waste as a source of electricity and steam power might sound attractive, but power generated by any waste incinerator is never going to match the much lower GHG footprint of clean, green renewable energy from hydro, wind and solar sources.
If incineration isn’t the way to go what’s the answer? The answer lies in a series of mutually supporting, environmentally attractive and much cheaper waste diversion policies and programs such as those being evaluated by the City’s Solid Waste Master Plan. This means rolling out green bins to multi-residential properties and ensuring greater diversion of organics. In addition we must enhance recycling programs, restrict what can be put out for garbage collection and provide a direct incentive to divert more curbside waste from disposal. The latter can be achieved simply and more fairly by putting a price on what waste is collected through implementing a user pay system.
Priority should be given to extending the life of the Trail Road site and not replacing it with a highly environmentally problematic and very expensive waste incinerator.
Waste Watch Ottawa Briefing of New City Councillors
NOVEMBER 8, 2022
When thinking about the City’s waste management challenges and the upcoming 2023 decisions that will need to be made in response to anticipated Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP) recommendations the following need to be taken into account:
- 9% of the corporate and community GHGs are represented by waste – collection trucks, leachate haulage, fugitive methane emissions
- Through the blue box, black box and green bin programs Ottawa diverts from landfill 43 – 45% of the total waste generated residentially in the city – we have been stalled at this level for years – at least since the implementation of the green bin in 2011/12
- In York Region the diversion rate is 65% and in Markham which is part of York Region the diversion rate is over 80%
The next numbers are the most worrying and are the numbers which need to be the primary focus as decisions are made about Ottawa’s waste management future
- SWMP waste audits show that 50% of the waste that is collected curbside and from multi-residential properties is not waste and should either be in the recycling program or the green bin program
- The Trail Road landfill will have to close in 14 years – capacity projections show that the site will be full by as early as 2036. This means that at the end of the 4 year term of Council the landfill will only have 10 years of life left
SO WHAT TO DO?
- Manage and use the Trail Road landfill as an “evergreen” sustainable facility as a long term asset for the 30 year planning horizon of the SWMP by reducing to the extent possible the residual waste requiring disposal
- A new landfill or an incinerator will take 10 years to locate, get approved, construct and commission. Each would cost in excess of $300 million. How easy will it be to locate either within the bounds of the City of Ottawa? How long might it take and at what environmental, financial and social cost? Where are the willing host communities?
- Focus on reduction and waste diversion
- Reduce the amount of garbage that can be put out for collection – 6 bags/containers is way too generous
- Phase in a user pay / pay as you throw system. Such systems are successfully used by dozens of municipalities. They work by providing an incentive to recycle and separate household organics. This may be controversial but if a decision is made to proceed early in the new mandate, looking back in 4 years the decision will be shown to be prescient and the right choice
- Specifically target products such as mattresses, electronics and textiles for special / depot collection for recycling
- Significantly increase spending on promotion and education to levels spent by comparable municipalities. Ottawa has consistently spent as little as 25% of what other municipalities spend per household
- Ensure the 2022 council decision to provide green bin collection to multi-residential buildings is properly and actively supported with staff resources and budget.
WWO Priorities for the Solid Waste Management Master Plan (April 2022)
- support city council’s zero waste vision and adoption of the climate emergency declaration
- aim for at least 70% waste diversion comparable to leading municipalities
- reduce climate impacts by improving organics collection and considering bio gas options
- no new landfill / no incineration
- manage and use the Trail road landfill as an “evergreen” facility for the long term
- adopt a user pay system for garbage collection
- reduce the allowable waste for curbside pickup
- mandate recycling and organics collection in all multi-residential properties as a condition of city garbage collection
- increase spending on promotion and education by 4 times to match spending by other municipalities
In the News
Most compostable packaging still doomed to landfill – CBC Kristy Nease, November 9, 2022
Proposed waste management system could force residents to think twice about what they toss – Ottawa Citizen, May 17, 2022
Take the time to build a zero-waste future, Ottawa – Ottawa Citizen, July 16, 2021
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/bury-take-the-time-to-build-a-zero-waste-future-ottawa
Waste Watch Ottawa 