EnviroCentre Weighs in on Ottawa’s Solid Waste Master Plan

The City of Ottawa has just approved its Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP). The plan comes at an ideal time – Ottawa’s landfill is filling up fast, and more than half of what currently goes to the landfill should be recycled or composted instead. 58% of what Ottawa residents throw in the garbage could go in the green, blue, or black bin.

The City’s Trail Road Waste Facility is expected to reach capacity in 13 to 15 years, and establishing a new landfill could cost taxpayers between $300 and $450 million.

Instead of throwing so much away, wouldn’t it make more sense to start by keeping recyclables and organics out of the landfill?

Sorting waste properly has significant environmental benefits. When organic waste decomposes in landfills it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.   

Emissions from Canadian landfills account for 23% of national methane emissions.

These emissions are significantly reduced when organic waste is composted through the green bin program instead of being improperly disposed of in the landfill.  

Today, only 17% of waste is diverted from multi-residential units in Ottawa compared to 53% of waste collected through the curbside program. This is why Action Suite 5 of the Solid Waste Master Plan focuses on these properties. With 28% of Ottawa residents housed in multi-residential properties, these properties present an excellent opportunity for reducing the recyclables and organics sent to our landfill. 

To help increase recycling rates at multi-residential properties, the Solid Waste Master Plan is making Green Bin (organics diversion) a prerequisite for them to receive city waste management services and recommends piloting garbage chute closures or conversions to organic chutes.

While these recommendations may seem extreme to some, we can only meet Provincial and City of Ottawa targets with strong action.

The City of Ottawa’s Climate Change Master Plan includes targets to reduce carbon emissions by 100 per cent, which will require 98% of organic waste to be diverted from Ottawa’s landfills.  

The province of Ontario’s Food and Organic Waste Policy Statement sets targets for multi-residential buildings of 50% waste reduction and resource recovery of food and organic waste generated at the building by 2025. Today, many multi-residential properties in Ottawa don’t even have a green bin option, but in less than two years, they will be expected to divert half of all organic waste. To meet these targets, thoughtful infrastructure changes are needed.  

For effective waste diversion, convenience is paramount. This means that all waste streams (glass/metal/plastic, paper/cardboard, organics, and garbage) are collected at the same accessible and convenient location on the property. It is simply NOT effective to put a green bin behind a building and expect residents to go out of their way to start using it. Properly sorted waste requires a clean, convenient, and easy option. 

For a small building with few units, effective organics collection can be as simple as adding a green bin to an existing waste collection area and educating residents on how and why to use it. For large high-rise building, it can be complex, and can include the closure of garbage chutes and chute rooms, removal of compactors, and retrofitting of a waste room. EnviroCentre has seen the positive effects of closing garbage chutes in high-rise buildings, but it comes with a cost of anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 for a full retrofit.

Many multi-residential properties will face significant costs to implement building upgrades to effectively divert organics from landfills. Under the current approach, building owners will be responsible for using their budgets to complete infrastructure upgrades that encourage effective organics collection. This may be an unrealistic expectation for building owners with limited time and resources, and most especially for time and resource-stretched providers of affordable and social housing units.

The City of Ottawa or the provincial government could help ensure the success of multi-unit organics diversion by providing funding to incentivize effective rollout of organics collection. This will reduce the implementation burden placed on resource-stretched housing providers, while also accelerating the path to meet the City and Provincial waste reduction targets. 

Live in a high-rise building? Write to your City Councillor or MPP to request that they provide funding for multi-residential unit property owners to encourage effective organics collection!