Innnovative waste management solutions for the City of Toronto

Executive Summary

Introduction

The City of Toronto Solid Waste Management Services Division is a public service that handlesthe disposal of refuse for residential and commercial properties. The goal of the City is to reducethe amount of waste that is landfilled each year without dramatically increasing the system’scosts.Waste management is a major issue for all urban centres but it has been particularly in focus inToronto since Michigan decided to stop accepting the city’s garbage. The city faces the problemsrelated to the volume of waste and limited landfill capacity, the environmental and monetarycosts of waste, illegal dumping, and a general sense of entitlement that permeates society and justifies the production of waste.

Reframing Techniques

Stakeholder Perspectives

The first step in developing an achievable solution to the problems currently facing Toronto is torecognize the various stakeholder perspectives and interests. The stakeholders affected by wastemanagement policy include:

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Industry/Retailer – Industry and retailers have an interest in minimizing the costs of production.They perceive the problem as something that should have a long-term market solution.

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The Environment – Nature is a right belonging to future generations, not only current ones,therefore, the interest of nature is to be preserved to the fullest extent possible.

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Tax Payer – Taxpayers have an interest in seeing their money spent effectively to improve thecity and in minimizing their contribution. Their perspective is that the city is rarely efficient.

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High Awareness Citizens – Toronto has an increasing number of people who are concernedabout the environment. These people believe that the city can continue to improve and shoulddo more.

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Low Awareness Citizens – Toronto also has many citizens who are unaware or apathetictowards the harmful environmental effects of unconstrained dumping. They either do not perceive the problem or do not want to act to improve it.

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The Chippewa of Thames Nation – They recently contracted with the City to build a newlandfill to go into operation in 2011. Their goal is to benefit economically from the City’s wastewhile preserving the environmental integrity of their community.

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City of Toronto – The City wants to be responsive to its citizens but also demonstrate positiveleadership. The City is interested in improving their environmental policies without increasingwaste management expenditures.

Challenging Assumptions

Six assumptions about waste have been identified:1.Waste = garbage (i.e. there is only one way to dispose of waste)2.Waste is bad for the environment3.The City will take care of it

4.Individual acts do not matter 5.The consumer is responsible for disposing of product packaging6.High consumption levels necessitate lots of garbage

Benchmarking

In Sweden, more than 90% of household waste is recycled, reused, or recovered. By contrast,Toronto sends 50% of its waste to landfills. Sweden has made industry responsible for recovering their product packaging, a move which greatly increased the incentive for firms toreduce packaging. Sweden has also made it illegal to landfill organic waste. In 2004, thesemeasures led to recycling rates of 96% for glass packaging, 95% for metal, and 86% for cardboard. Most of the waste that cannot be recycled is incinerated at high efficiency plants. The power generated is sold to the electricity authority at market rates. The most modern plant cost$286 million to build, incinerates 460,000 tonnes of garbage a year, and generates revenue of $36 to $70 million annually. The plant not only pays for itself, but will also begin generating a profit within six years. By contrast, Toronto has spent $230 million on its most recent landfill.

Recommendations

1) Create a voluntary certification system for companies that are properly managing their waste.This system would be loosely based on Toronto’s DineSafe rating system for restaurants.Companies that meet certification requirements would be able to display this fact at their storefront or behind their counter. This will inform consumers about the practices of their merchants and complement the City’s current awareness campaign. It will also create acommercial incentive for companies to join the program as consumers will gradually come toassociate the lack of certification with a lack of environmental concern.2) The City has made good improvements to their practices by adopting Blue bins, Green bins,and Yellow bags, but there is still a long way to go to get to a sustainable solution to the problemof waste. A longer term solution begins with the City making investments into technology thatcan recycle materials into reusable and profit-making products. This is attainable if the type of waste product used in consumer packaging is standardized. An example of this would be tostandardize the material used in coffee cups. The city can use its special taxation powers to penalize firms that do not phase in the chosen materials. The way to better engage consumers inthe process is to expand the deposit system currently used for some bottles and cans, into a wider range of products. This will ensure that consumers recycle more waste. If the city can rely on astandard material for coffee cups, and consumers are recycling them in order to receive their refund, then a system can be implemented that converts the cups en masse into a reusable waste product.

Conclusion

Through the application of these recommendations, the City can make a significant economicgain through diminished use of landfills and increased use of reprocessing. The result will also be a major improvement to environmental harms as less waste will be dumped into nature.Lastly, Toronto will undoubtedly experience major social benefits from living in a cleaner, moreenvironmentally progressive city that has taken active steps to minimize its footprint.