The War on Waste

Dozens of gulls snap up morsels of trash as Beacock unearths an umbrella, electrical wires, a plastic canola oil container and a 20-litre plastic pail. He scoops up a battery with his shovel.

“There’s a real no-no,” says the Brock Township landfill operator. “I don’t know how many times we tell the public. There’s one thing I hate seeing in a landfill is any battery.”

These items could have been diverted through one of Ontario’s provincewide waste diversion programs. But they ended up here, as they do at other municipal garbage sites, including Hamilton’s Glanbrook Landfill.

Programs like the blue box may have lulled Ontarians into believing they’re doing all they can to help the environment and reduce waste. But Trash Troubles — a Metroland Special Report — shows we aren’t being as diligent as we think.

Provincewide, 55 per cent of garbage that could be recycled ends up in landfills instead.

As a result, landfills are filling up fast and we are on the brink of a waste disposal crisis, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario says.

“Our garbage continues to outstrip available landfill space,” said AMO’s president Gary McNamara. “We must either reduce our waste and recycle more waste, or accept new landfills or incinerators in our communities.”

Governments established ambitious waste diversion targets during the last decade, but today, more than half the five million tonnes of waste picked up at Ontario curbsides annually gets dumped instead of recycled or reused. That 2.7 million tonnes of waste, which could have been diverted, is equivalent to the weight of 6,222 Boeing 747 jets.

For example, three-quarters of plastics that should be recycled end up in landfills.

And even though organics make up about one-third of the province’s waste, only 40 per cent of Ontarians have access to a curbside green bin program.

In Hamilton, “we’re perhaps not in a crisis,” says Pat Parker, director of support services for waste management, but there is definite pressure.

The city is well short of its 65-per-cent waste-diversion goal set for 2011, a target now under review.

While there are about 25 years of life left at the Glanbrook Landfill, where Hamilton’s residential garbage goes, Hamiltonians diverted only 49 per cent of their waste in 2010, up from the 45 per cent reported in 2009, but still shy of the goal.

“If we don’t increase our diversion, if we stay at what we’re at now, that could be a problem,” Parker said.

Hamilton sent 110,000 tonnes to landfill in 2010 — equivalent to about 4.8 million garbage bags. To get to the 65 per cent diversion rate goal, the equivalent of 1.6 million bags a year has to be taken out of the landfill stream and recycled or composted instead, Parker said.

The city still has options at Glanbrook, including increasing capacity through new design or equipment, and “will continue to do whatever we can to maximize its life.”

“But at some point, something will need to be done,” she said.

The city is in the midst of a review of its solid waste management plan. It will be looking for public input in about a month, Parker said, as it examines options on how to stay on top of garbage in the future.

Across Ontario, more than $320 million was spent on waste diversion last year, through programs funded by industry, municipalities and the province. Consumers also pay through eco fees on certain products.

The results of these programs are poor. Not a single community surveyed for Trash Troubles, this Metroland Special Report, has hit its waste-diversion goal.

Ontario towns and cities have made barely a dent in the truckloads of plastic bottles, pop cans, magazines, milk cartons and other household garbage that still end up in dumps.

A 2010 report by Ontario’s Auditor General ranked the province sixth in Canada by waste-diversion rate, behind Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, British Columbia and Quebec and well behind most European countries.

“There’s a good portion of the population who are very devout, who take a lot of time and sort,” Beacock said at the Brock Township site, northeast of Toronto. “The rest of them do nothing. It’s just all wham bam in a bag and out to the curb.”

The same items Beacock is pulling out of the Brock dump are cramming municipal landfills across Ontario, contributing to the crisis that worries AMO.

Brock Township will run out of space in two years. Landfills in at least six other municipalities, including Simcoe County, Northumberland and Muskoka, will fill up within 10 years.

Brock is fortunate: a new incinerator to replace all Durham Region’s landfills should be open in 2014. In the meantime, garbage is diverted from full landfills in the rest of the region to a private landfill in upstate New York.

Other communities are scouring for solutions.

Those with landfills already closed, including Guelph and Peel, are trucking garbage to other cities in Ontario.

Even green bin waste is a problem. York is sending some of its organics to Massachusetts because its Ontario contractor cannot handle the region’s full volume.

Many Ontarians may believe that Toronto’s decision to stop sending the city’s residential waste to Michigan at the end of 2010 signalled the end of Ontario garbage exports. But the practice continues.

Guelph had been sending organics to an incinerator in Niagara Falls, N.Y., since 2006 but finally opened a new composting facility in September.

“As long as you have got this escape valve (sending it south), no one is going to take this issue seriously,” said Municipal Waste Association spokesperson Ben Bennett.

The Auditor-General says waste diversion rates are lagging because:

 • Municipalities with enough landfill space are unlikely to reduce curbside pickups and impose garbage bag limits.

 • Municipalities have to compete with each other and the private sector to sell their recyclable and compostable materials.

 • Municipalities say the nearly $80 million provided by industry for their share of the $160-million-a-year blue box program is not enough.

 • They also say it is 40 per cent cheaper to landfill materials that could be recycled.

Even the types of materials collected in residential blue bin programs differ by municipality. While one may accept aluminum foil, trays and take-out containers, another may only take one of these materials or refuse it all.

“You go to cottage country and it’s different,” said Trevor Barton, Peel Region’s waste management planning supervisor. “You go to your neighbouring municipality and it’s different. It’s very frustrating for residents.”