The Province of Ontario just released the new Food and Organic Waste Framework and it includes policies that will require businesses to prevent food waste and will ensure businesses and highrises have organics collection!

What the new Food and Organic Waste Framework means:

• A number of Ontario municipalities don’t offer food waste collection. Now, they will all be required to collect organic waste from residents.
• Businesses and institutions throw out 75% of the organic waste they generate, approximately 1.2 million tonnes of food waste each year. Now they’ll have to create food waste reduction plans, send surplus food to food redistribution groups or find a composter to take their food scraps.
• All high-rise buildings will need to offer organics collection for their residents - not just those with municipal service, as is currently the case.

The Framework is one of the first new Ontario policies under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act that uses Provincial Policy Statements to direct other departments, government bodies, municipalities and businesses to act.

As the strategy was developed, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change held rounds of consultations to get feedback - and our TEA community of supporters flooded the consultation form with responses every time!

In these consultations, the government heard loud and clear that organics shouldn't be sent to a landfill or an incinerator and that Torontonians want green bins in every building in the city, from high-rise residential buildings to offices to public spaces.

Along with directing waves of emails from residents to Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, we worked with partner and ally organizations to get dozens of letters sent from environmental and community groups.

As one of the only environmental groups on the Stakeholder Advisory Group, we were able to push forward a bold framework and mobilize our supporters and allies.

Combined, this significant public response demonstrated that people in Ontario agree that food doesn’t belong in the garbage.

More information:

• Ontario Food & Organic Waste Framework - Summary brochure
• Ministry of Environment & Climate Change website:
  • Detailed Government Action Plan
  • Policy Statements directing businesses and municipalities to act
• TEA's January blog post about the Framework