Bob Beacock ignores the overpowering stench. He walks into a pile of sticky, torn garbage bags dumped on top of one of Ontario’s heaping landfill sites.

Dozens of seagulls 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 province-wide waste diversion programs. But they ended up here.

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.

Province-wide, 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.” The government established ambitious waste diversion targets in the last decade, but today, more than half of the five million tonnes of waste picked up at Ontario curbsides annually gets dumped instead of recycled or reused. The 2.7 million tonnes of waste that could be diverted is equivalent to the weight of 6,222 Boeing 747 jets.

For example, three-quarters of plastics that could 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.

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

The results of these programs are poor. Not a single community surveyed for this Metroland Special Report, has hit its waste-diversion goal. (Click here to see chart.)

Barely a dent

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. In Hamilton, which has been trying to stem the tide of waste to the rapidly-filling Glanbrook dump, the waste diversion goal set in 2001 was 65 per cent in an effort to extend the dump’s life span to 2050. Currently, the rate sits at 49 per cent – which means the landfill will be at capacity by 2041.

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.

Landfills are running out of space or are already full. 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 of 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. Some are planning landfill expansions. 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.

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

Municipalities are trying to send less to landfill but falling short of official targets (click here to see chart). Waterloo Region and Northumberland County have not even set a target.

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 takeout 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.”

Opportunities

Each municipality has to be able to find a market or a solution for the recyclable materials it collects, said Lucy Robinson of the Recycling Council of Ontario. “If there is an inherent value in a product or material, somebody is going to want to use it and therefore, there will be a recycling opportunity.”

For example, much of the plastic packaging that ends up in landfills is not included in municipal blue box programs because there’s no market for it, she said.

Ontario households trashed 176,500 tonnes of plastics, 116,000 tonnes of printed paper and 122,000 tonnes of paper packaging in 2009, according to a report by Stewardship Ontario, the industry-funded organization for the blue box program.

The Auditor-General says the result is that one in five municipalities report they don’t have enough space to dump their residential garbage.

Not many landfills are being built since it’s a long, complicated ordeal to get ministry approval. Lafleche Environmental Inc., in Moose Creek, near Ottawa, was the last new landfill approved in 1999 in Ontario, the ministry of the environment said.

With landfills tough to build, there is a push to keep waste out, spawning province-wide stewardship programs. Experts also say government needs to push producers to design more recyclable and reusable products, also known as extended producer responsibility.

Footing the bill

AMO recently ran ads saying consumers and producers of waste should be funding recycling programs so property taxpayers are not left footing the bill.

“A senior on a fixed income who doesn’t drive, own an iPad or a big flat screen TV shouldn’t have to pay for the high disposal costs of other people’s tires, smart phones and computers through her property taxes,” said McNamara.

Along with industry involvement, waste management officials and experts say residents need to watch what they are throwing out.

“They would just rather throw it in a bag and get rid of it and throw it in a landfill,” said Peterborough’s waste management co-ordinator Craig Simmons. “They just think there’s an unlimited area where that material can go.”

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Next week: Where does our garbage go?