Durham ranks 15th in Ontario for waste diversion
Region says basing waste diversion rates on weight alone is flawed
Whitby This Week
January 29, 2014
By Jillian Follert
New data from Waste Diversion Ontario lands Durham on a top-20 list for keeping garbage out of landfills -- but local officials say the numbers can be deceiving.
The new data ranks Ontario municipalities based on the percentage of waste diverted from landfill in 2012.
Durham Region comes in at 15 with a diversion rate of 53.63 per cent, while Guelph grabbed the top spot at 67.72 per cent.
Craig Bartlett, the Region’s manager of waste operations, says Durham is working to change the way waste diversion rates are measured.
“We put a lot of emphasis on diversion rate calculations, it’s kind of the only measurement we’ve got right now, but it’s not truly measuring the successes municipalities are having,” he says.
Waste Diversion Ontario is a not-for-profit organization funded by industry, which oversees recycling programs for electrical and electronic equipment, used tires, blue box material and hazardous or special waste.
The current calculation was adopted in 1999 and is based on tonnage -- which critics say results in a bias toward heavier materials.
Municipalities that recycle a lot of heavy glass, for example, would rank as having a higher diversion rate than those that recycle a lot of lighter plastics.
The Waste Diversion Ontario calculation also doesn’t take reduction or reuse efforts into account.
For example, there are thousands of yard sales in Durham each year, which result in items being repurposed instead of thrown out, while resale websites such as Craigslist and Kijjji offer the same benefit.
Mr. Bartlett says Durham made big progress in 2013 when it expanded the list of accepted blue box plastics and started curbside collection of batteries and electronic waste.
“There is this tremendous amount of material being taken out of the waste stream and being put to use as new products, but the diversion metric doesn’t recognize it as a significant contribution,” he notes.
The Region currently has a working group in place to look at changing the way diversion rates are calculated.
Durham’s goal is to reach a 70-per cent diversion rate.
How does Durham measure up?
Here is Waste Diversion Ontario’s 2012 ranking of municipalities based on their residential waste diversion rates:
1. Guelph - 67.72 per cent
2. Owen Sound - 63.09 per cent
3. Mono - 60.62 per cent
4. Meaford - 59.73 per cent
5. East Luther Grand Valley - 58.73 per cent
6. Oxford County - 58.10 per cent
7. Simcoe Count - 57.65 per cent
8. York Region - 57.25 per cent
9. Orangeville - 55.99 per cent
10. Grey Highlands - 55.90 per cent
11. Perth - 55.56 per cent
12. West Grey - 55.54 per cent
13. Red Lake - 54.05 per cent
14. Kingston - 53.79 per cent
15. Durham Region - 53.63 per cent
16. Waterloo Region - 52.52 per cent
17. Halton Region - 52.37 per cent
18. Deep River - 52.29 per cent
19. Madawaska Valley - 52.02 per cent
20. Orillia - 52 per cent
