Under the terms of a City of Toronto Council directive, each City Agency, Board, Commission and Division (ABCD) has to recycle at least 70% of its waste by the end of 2010.
In order to quantify recycling and garbage being generated in its buildings, Facilities Management (FM) tracks waste on a quarterly basis and annually carries out waste audits on larger office buildings.
FM used this data to create the following waste diversion rates for its office buildings from 2004 to 2010.
Waste Diversion Rates
| Year |
Waste Diversion Rate - Office workplaces |
| 2004 |
71% |
| 2005 |
71% |
| 2006 |
78% |
| 2007 |
80% |
| 2008 |
84% |
| 2009 |
85% |
| 2010 |
85% |
*Please note diversion rates cover only office areas; they do not include loading docks, cafeterias or public squares.
Since 2004, FM has diverted about 11,113 metric tonnes from landfill to recycling. By recycling this waste, FM has saved about $700,000 in avoided landfill dumping fees (based on average cost of $64 per metric tonne dumping fee).
How to create a waste diversion rate
In order to find out the waste diversion rate of an office workplace all its garbage and recycling are weighed for three days and the following formula is used:
total recycling ÷ total recycling + total garbage x by 100%.
