Voluntary action isn’t enough. We need rules and regulations to restrict, regulate and eliminate unrecyclable and polluting single-use plastics.

At its July meeting, Toronto City Council voted to take the first critical step to act locally on the global plastics problem. Councillors voted to start a public and stakeholder consultation on what the City can do to reduce single-use packaging and plastics.

Yesterday, the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee (PWIC) took an important and urgent step forward to deal with problem waste, like single-use plastics, in Toronto. Here’s a recap of the meeting and the decisions that were made.

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!

TEA’s Zero Waste High-Rise project is well underway with 6 buildings from across Toronto rolling up their sleeves to tackle waste and climate change.

Toronto just passed a resolution to the Federal government asking for a national strategy on plastics. A national strategy on plastics could create a uniform approach for all provinces and cities, setting national targets and standards, and holding the multi-national companies that create plastics responsible for the environmental impacts.

New rules to ban or put fees on harmful single-use plastics could be coming to Toronto within the next year.

The Province of Ontario has developed a Food and Organic Waste Framework, as a part of the larger Waste Free Ontario Strategy and the Ontario Climate Change Action Plan. This framework is a forward-thinking and positive strategy for dealing with organics and food waste.

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about our recycling system since China, the world’s biggest recycling market, has stopped accepting more plastics. This decision has a huge impact on recycling systems around the world - including here in Ontario-  and it highlights the problems that arise from not holding producers responsible for the packaging they create.