- View the feedback report from the 2019 Waste Strategies engagement. A report on the engagement will go to the Environment, Infrastructure and Transportation Policies Committee in early 2020.
- Winter-Spring 2020: The City is consulting directly with owners/managers and residents of multi-residential buildings with seven or more residential unit about the option of making use of the Green Bin program mandatory. A survey and workshops are planned for this stakeholder group.
The City is seeking your input on the implementation of new waste strategies to reach the goal of diverting 65 per cent of household waste from landfill by 2025. The City has been stuck at 60 per cent waste-diversion level for the last three years, and new service levels, policies or programs are needed to reach 65 per cent.
The City’s most recent curbside audits show that as much as 50 per cent of what is in the average garbage bag is compostable (35 per cent) or recyclable (15 per cent) material that can be captured in the City’s voluntary blue/grey recycling box and green bin programs. If all of these waste items were put in the right box or bin, Kingston would have a waste diversion rate of 76 per cent!
Diverting waste from landfill is good for the land, air and water - the whole environment benefits when less waste is sent to landfill! Watch this video to learn about how waste reacts in a landfill.
Diverting waste means capturing valuable resources out of the garbage sent to landfill that can be reused, recycled or composted. Capturing these resources, and keeping them out of landfill, decreases carbon and methane gas emissions which are contributors to climate change and prevents toxins from being released into land/water.
Your input will help us determine how waste collection changes in Kingston. The forum below, held this spring, helped us gather wide-ranging ideas on strategies that can be implemented to increase our diversion rate. A series of focus groups at the end of May/beginning of June has helped further hone those strategies that will be presented at the upcoming open houses.
While 'reduce' is always the first 'R' – and we encourage Kingstonians to reduce their waste – this public consultation is specifically focused on understanding how to capture the recyclables and organics that continue to be placed into the garbage that’s put out at the curb and sent to landfill by the households in our community.
For more details on this project and its background, see the City’s project page.
