We talked to Toronto residents at their door and at community events throughout the summer about food scraps and organics collection and where we need more of it.

We asked people:

• If they have organics collection to compost food scraps at home
• If they have organics collection at work or school, and where they play
• Whether they would support a change in rules so that organics collection is required everywhere.

Their answers confirmed what we already know: not all residents in Toronto high-rises have organics collection at home and most businesses don’t compost food scraps, as there are no City or Provincial rules for offices, grocery stores, restaurants or other places to collect organics. Sadly, too much compostable food is just getting dumped in the garbage.    

Fortunately, another message was clear:

95% of people surveyed agreed that we need rules to ensure every home and business in Toronto has green bins to compost food scraps and organics.

 Another 4% were unsure, or wanted more information on what these rules could look like, and less than 1% said they didn’t support such rules.

Why Green Bins are so important:

Food scraps and organics is the largest category of household waste, and a big part of businesses’ waste too. Keeping organics out of the garbage is one of the biggest priorities for Ontario and Toronto to reduce the waste sent to landfill, and to meet our climate change goals.

Instead of wasting these resources, we can hold producers responsible for wasted food and expand Green Bin organics collection to every building in Toronto. In the Green Bin, organics get composted, and the captured methane can be converted to Renewable Natural Gas.

By Emily Alfred, TEA's Waste Campaigner.