A request has come to Kincardine council for an audit of the municipality’s solid waste.
The Kincardine Environmental Action Network is asking for the information so that there can be more understanding about what’s being collected in the trash to end up in local landfills.
Kim Armitage, who is a member of KEAN, says that they’re looking for information on how much organic material winds up in the garbage, as well as plastics, recyclables, and hazardous waste.
She said that the organization is starting to put a lot of focus on plastics in particular, because local and national use has increased.
“We’re producing more plastics than we’re able to manage. The recycling in Ontario at least is stalled at 25% [being recycled],” she said.
In 2023, the municipality had engaged with GHD consulting to understand how much waste and recycling were received at the landfill, but KEAN says that there was no indication of how much recyclable materials ended up in the landfill.
That report also didn’t say how much of each material ended up in landfill.
Armitage explained to council that as an organization focused on environmental stewardship, they want to make sure their efforts are effective. “We want to know that we’re making an impact, so one way to do that is to understand, ‘Is it really a problem for us? Do we have a big landfill issue with that?’ before we make the initiative.”
KEAN says that it’s important for the municipality to understand what’s ending up in landfill, because the changes that the province has made to the Blue Box program are meant to move Ontario towards a circular economy, where waste diversion is the basis of different financial opportunities.
“If the amounts [of waste] increase, we really haven’t done a good job yet,” she said. “To get the true idea of how well we’ve done, we really need those audits [done], pre- and post.”
The organization also says that it wants that same information to help find waste reduction initiatives that will have the most impact for the municipality.
