Canada-U.S. trade war could spark an 'immediate crisis' in Ontario's landfills

Doug Ford's government is blaming U.S. tariffs for the expansion of a controversial landfill project in southwestern Ontario — but experts say the conflict should serve as a wake-up call that time is running out to find long-term solutions to the province's rapidly-filling landfills.

Ford's government has repeatedly raised the spectre of the U.S. President Donald Trump tariffing, or cutting off, garbage shipments to the U.S. as the rationale to reopen the York1 landfill site near Dresden, Ont.

While it's unclear if Trump has made such a threat publicly, or privately, the province has depended on the U.S. to take millions of tonnes of its trash for decades.

"It's about being self-reliant when it comes to waste management and all matters economic," Ontario's Environment Minister Todd McCarthy said in question period recently while defending the York1 project.

Ontario sent one-third of its waste to three American states between 2006 and 2022, with 40 million tonnes going to Michigan alone. Ontario generates between 12 and 15 million tonnes of trash annually and while the government's concerns are legitimate, one landfill will not solve the problem, said York University professor Calvin Lakhan.

"If, for whatever reason, the U.S. administration decided to close their borders to Canadian waste … we would face an immediate crisis that we simply do not have the infrastructure to manage," Lakhan said.

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The province's auditor general and the association that represents the province's waste and recycling sector have warned for years that Ontario's landfill capacity will be exhausted over the next decade.

A 2023 report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario showed that while waste diversion rates increased in the preceding five years, so too did the amount of garbage generated by the province's growing population.

Even before Trump took office, Ontario faced major challenges disposing of its own garbage, said Lakhan, who is director of York's Circular Innovation Hub. But, he says the Dresden landfill, which the company says will take only non-hazardous construction and demolition materials, won't be enough to solve the crunch.

"Adding additional capacity to one landfill in the province is like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound," he said. "At best, it provides us a temporary reprieve."

Late last month, NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns slammed the government for failing to take earlier action on the file.

"In 2021, the Auditor General reported Ontario was facing a landfill crunch," he said. "This is not news, and the government did nothing about it."

At the time, the then-auditor general Bonnie Lysyk issued a damning report which laid some of the blame for the landfill crunch at the feet of businesses and institutions provincewide. They generate 60 per cent of Ontario's waste — that's at least 7.2 million tonnes of waste annually — and 98 per cent don't recycle, she said.

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In 2017, the previous Liberal government set a goal to divert half of all waste generated by the province's residential and business sectors by 2030, and 80 per cent by 2050. As of 2021, Lysyk said the province was not on track to hit those targets.

As a result, she warned, "Ontario will be faced with questions about where to put all this waste and how to pay for it in the very near future."

A follow up audit from Lysyk's office in 2023 showed the government had made little progress on her 2021 recommendations. Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the government has shown little interest in tackling the problem.

"What this really shows is the Ford government's utter failure to bring forward a zero waste strategy for Ontario to hit waste diversion targets," he told CBC Toronto in a recent interview.

Karen Wirsig, senior program manager for plastics with Environmental Defence, said she's concerned the government will use Trump's tariffs as an excuse to push ahead with new or expanded landfills and to loosen environmental assessment rules around their creation.

"What worries me — and what it probably signals — is a broader intention by the government to use the sense of emergency to override local planning, local decision-making and local wishes," she said.

Ontario should use this moment to build consensus on a variety of waste diversion strategies that prolong the life of its current landfills, Wirsig said. It could also create a plastic bottle deposit program to encourage recycling and get behind "right to repair" efforts to keep electronics in use for years, she added.

"This is the low hanging fruit," Wirsig said, stressing that pursuing an organics diversion program amongst businesses, institutions and multi-unit residential properties would keep food waste out of landfills.

Lakhan said the province may have to consider expansion of waste to energy facilities that burn trash to create electricity. While the technology remains controversial in Ontario, he said Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia are turning to it.

"It's not necessarily considered a desirable end-of-life outcome," he said. "But the reality is that it's probably one of the only economically and technologically feasible short-term solutions that could potentially address this waste crisis."

The association that represents Ontario's waste and recycling sector said it too is concerned about the spectre of tariffs on garbage shipments.

It can take eight to 10 years for a new landfill to become operational, so enhanced disposal and diversion methods are needed, said Waste to Resource Ontario spokesperson Sophia Koukoulas.

"Landfill continuation initiatives like expansions are the best short-term solutions to mitigate trade threats now, while preserving disposal capacity long-term," she said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Minister McCarthy said the York1 project near Dresden is the landfill that can "mobilize the quickest" to reduce reliance on the U.S.

"We have been clear, the project will still undergo extensive environmental processes and remain subject to strong provincial oversight and other regulatory requirements," Alexandru Cioban said in a statement.