Canadian Biomass • Summer 2025 • Final Thoughts

Political uncertainty over limitations on garbage shipments to the U.S. has sparked renewed concerns about the status of Ontario’s landfills.

In 2021, Ontario’s Auditor General reported that the province’s landfills are nearing capacity and are expected to be exhausted within the next decade. A follow- up 2023 report emphasized ongoing shortcomings, noting that the Ministry’s five-year progress report on the Strategy for a Waste-Free Ontario: Building a Circular Economy, released in February 2023, does not mention or evaluate progress toward the province’s waste diversion targets: 30% by 2020, 50% by 2030, and 80% by 2050.

Ontario currently sends approximately 12 million tonnes of waste to landfills each year, and with waste generation steadily increasing, it is critical to explore every viable solution to reduce landfill use. One of the most promising opportunities lies in diverting organic waste to anaerobic digestion facilities, a proven and beneficial method for processing these materials instead of sending them to landfill. According to Ontario’s Food and Organic Waste Framework, 32% of the province’s waste stream consists of food and other organic materials such as food scraps, soiled paper, and yard waste. These materials contain valuable energy and nutrients that can be recovered through anaerobic digestion.

While more can be done to keep organics out of the landfill, the good news is that organics diversion rates are gradually improving. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s Ontario Baseline Waste & Recycling Report (2023) highlights a steady increase in total materials recycled over the past two decades, and this growth has mainly been driven by the municipal government investments in organic waste diversion programs. Between 2002 and 2022, there was a 124% increase in the amount of organic waste composted, with over 1.2 million tonnes diverted in 2022.

Still, more than 2.3 million tonnes of organic waste are estimated to be sent to landfills annually in Ontario, the majority from Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (ICI) sources. Ontario’s Food and Organic Waste Policy Statement sets clear targets for increased diversion, but the province has yet to provide guidance on meeting compliance with these targets.

Ontario currently hosts 140 biogas facilities, including those at landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and standalone sites, with a collective capacity to process more than 1 million tonnes of organic waste. Biogas facilities are well-aligned with broader waste management systems, offering a “closed loop” by converting organic materials into electricity or renewable natural gas (RNG).

The city of Surrey, British Columbia, provides a strong model. In response to Metro Vancouver’s 2015 Organics Disposal Ban, Surrey opened its renewable natural gas facility in 2018. The facility processes 115,000 tonnes of curbside organics annually into 120,000 GJ of RNG to fuel the City’s fleet of natural gas-powered waste collection and service vehicles and fuel the new district energy system.

Closer to home, Toronto’s Dufferin and Disco Road sites are actively diverting organics and producing clean energy, such as renewable natural gas and fertilizer. The city collects approximately 170,000 tonnes of organic material through its Green Bin Organics program each year and sends the materials to its two state-of-the-art processing facilities to create compost and renewable natural gas. These examples show that with the right infrastructure, organics diversion can be both environmentally and economically beneficial.

As the collective voice of Canada’s biogas sector, the Canadian Biogas Association offers a range of resources that highlight the environmental and economic benefits of diverting organics to biogas facilities. Its dedicated microsite, municipalbiogas.ca, features case studies and tools that illustrate how municipalities are successfully implementing these solutions. With Ontario facing increasing waste volumes and limited landfill capacity, expanding and supporting biogas infrastructure offers a practical and proven path forward.

“While more can be done to keep organics out of the landfill, the good news is that organics diversion rates are gradually improving.”