Waste Diversion In Parks, Forestry and Recreation

As Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation gears up for another summer season, we would like to remind you to place recyclables and litter in the appropriate receptacles provided.

If you have green bins or composters at home, please take organics home to be composted. You can help us achieve our 2010 waste diversion goal of 70% by reducing waste you leave behind in parks and facilities.

The What
The Why
The How

To find out more about garbage, recycling and other waste diversion programs in the City of Toronto, click here.

The What

Toronto's Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division has been working hard on waste diversion since 2003. Our goal is to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle as much as possible, in order to prevent materials going to waste. To help us achieve this goal, see What You Can Do.

The Why

Torontonians produce about one million metric tonnes of waste every year. All this waste comes from somewhere – and all of it has to go somewhere!

Much of it ends up buried in landfill. Since the closure of the Keele Valley landfill in 2002, Toronto's waste has been trucked to a landfill in Michigan.

In 2001, the mayor and City Council established the City's Waste Diversion Task Force 2010, to find a "made in Toronto" solution to the growing issue of waste generation and disposal in Toronto. The goal of Task Force 2010 was to find ways to ensure 30 per cent waste diversion from landfill by 2003, 60 per cent by 2006 and 100 per cent by 2010.

Since November 2004, the State of Michigan has substantially restricted the type of waste it will accept in its landfills, with special attention placed on recyclable and compostable items which don't need to be landfilled. These restrictions have further encouraged diversion efforts in the City of Toronto. Waste Diversion – reducing, reusing, recycling and composting – has now become a key City issue and has been highlighted in Mayor David Miller's Clean and Beautiful City initiative as well as his 2006 electoral platform.

In May of 2003, the Waste Diversion Team was established to assist the City's Agencies, Boards, Commissions and Divisions (ABC and Ds) in meeting Council's waste diversion targets, which have changed since the original Task Force made its recommendations. The new targets for the ABC and Ds are slightly different than for the City as a whole: 30 per cent by 2003, 60 per cent by 2007, and 70 per cent by 2010.

In 2004, Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation embarked on its first three-year Waste Diversion Plan. Toronto Parks and Forestry achieved a 39 per cent diversion rate by 2005, with Recreation at 32 per cent. In 2006, all branches of the division reached a diversion rate of 43 per cent. In 2007, Parks and Forestry reached a diversion rate of 46 per cent, while Recreation reached a diversion rate of 51 per cent.

With the help of every Toronto citizen who uses a park or recreation facility, we are aiming to achieve Council's goal of 70 per cent diversion by the end of 2010.

The How

Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation staff have launched a variety of education and "3Rs" (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) projects across the division. To date, we can proudly claim that we have accomplished the following:

Education

• We have trained 270 Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Environmental Stewards, each responsible for encouraging waste diversion in specific parks or facilities;

• We included waste diversion and environmental awareness sections in our Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation staff manuals and created a Waste Diversion Tips flyer and environmental activities resource binder for our Recreation staff;

• In 2006, we hired three dedicated Waste Diversion Education Staff who delivered more than 30 presentations and programs for staff and the public and facilitated fun, interactive waste diversion activities at 12 community events.
  
  In 2007, we hired six Waste Diversion Education Staff to promote waste diversion and stewardship values. These staff were involved in training 1,110 Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation staff and delivering educational programming at 41 community events, eight park outreach days and 74 camp programs, reaching a total of 8,200 children, youth and community members.
  
  During the summer of 2008, our staff will continue delivering fun, interactive presentations with the help of enthusiastic volunteers. Check out some of the simple waste diversion activities our staff use;

• Waste Diversion Education staff have also been involved in completing eight Eco Makeovers between 2006 to 2007 at four recreation centres and four park maintenance yards, with one more planned for 2008. Click here for details on the Eco Makeovers;

• We run 28 children's Eco Programs (e.g., Eco Camps, Eco Clubs, Garden Programs) across Toronto, providing environmental education and opportunities for program participants to beautify their neighbourhoods, as well as encouraging the practice of the 3Rs;

• In 2005, we established a partnership with the Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board to host spring and fall park clean-ups. In 2005, 3,500 students participated in cleaning up 41 parks. Participation tripled in 2006, with 11,000 students cleaning up 89 parks and planting 16 trees as part of the clean-up event. In 2007, involvement increased again and over 18,000 students participated in cleaning up 116 parks and planting 16 trees. For more details see the article "Thousands of young people come out to clean parks";


Students from Frank Oke Secondary School planting a
tree in Smythe Park following their clean-up event.

• Reduce, Reuse and Recycle messages have been promoted through various channels including articles in the Toronto Fun Guide, the Toronto Green Living Guide, the Waste Watch Newsletter and posters in Parks, Forestry and Recreation facilities including Toronto's Top Ten Ways to Reduce Waste, "See them? Use them." and "Litterless Lunch';

  

• In the Fall of 2007, a new partnership was launched with the Toronto Catholic and Public District School Boards – the Park Stewards Program. Through this 10-month program with five schools, students were engaged in regular park clean-ups and learning about park stewardship. This involved the development of curriculum-based indoor and outdoor lessons on parks, waste, ecology and the environment, which teachers used to engage their students throughout the school year. The goal of the program is for students to gain a better understanding of how their actions can make a huge impact on their local neighbourhood. For more details on this program see Partnering to Promote Stewardship;

• In 2007, we implemented new Waste Diversion Guidelines and deposit fees for park special event permits, in order to encourage special event organizers to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Reduce

• We continue to equip staff with stainless steel coffee mugs and reusable water bottles to reduce the use of disposable cups and plastic bottles;

• Since 2004, we have purchased reusable dishware sets for recreation facilities, park yards, greenhouses and conservatories. The goal is to reduce the amount of disposables used by staff at lunch and during programs;
  
  

• We send out letters to parents of camp participants, urging them to send their children to camp with litterless lunches. The Toronto Fun Guide also features a section on litterless lunches (PDF);

• We encourage all staff to print documents double-sided, to reduce our paper use;

• In 2005, we established a shared computer drive for all documents and resources related to waste diversion, to reduce our paper use;

• In 2006 we placed hand dryers at four community centres to reduce use of paper towels.

Reuse

• We teamed up with the Solid Waste Management Services Environment Days to help our recreation centres dispose of, or donate for reuse, some of their accumulated items (e.g., old clothes, sports equipment, electronics, etc.);

• In 2005, we created "Reusable Paper Here" stickers for placement on the lids of office paper shipment boxes, for collection of one-sided paper. One-sided paper can then be reused by staff for note paper, printing or art projects;

• We replaced arena ice paint with reusable vinyl liners in North District arenas in 2006;

• Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation staff donate many reusable "lost and found" items such as towels, clothing, footwear and eyeglasses to local and international charities on an ongoing basis;

• Forestry annually diverts close to 1.5 million kilograms of wood chips from Forestry operations.  The wood chips are used in a variety of applications, including ravine plantings and garden bed mulching.  Wood chips are also provided to other municipalities, Friends of the Rouge for their restoration efforts along the Rouge River ecosystem, TDSB & TCDSB, and to Solid Waste Management Services for processing of residential organic waste.
  
  

Recycle and Compost

• Since 2004, we have placed approximately 5,300 recycling baskets in parks and started recycling programs in over 160 recreation facilities city-wide;

• We established a program to collect and recycle spent fluorescent, mercury vapour, halogen and high-pressure sodium lamps from our facilities and sports fields. In 2007, we recovered 535.5 kg of glass, 7.29 kg of metal, 5.25 kg of phosphor and 0.21 kg of mercury by recycling 1,044 Fluorescent and 805 other lamps and related items;

• We partnered with the thINK Food Project of the Toronto Food Bank to initiate the program at many community centres across Toronto. Community centres are supplied with boxes for the collection of old cell phones and ink jet cartridges from the public. thINK Food recycles the phones and cartridges and the money received from recycling goes to the Toronto Daily Food Bank;

• By working with all our concession owners and vendors, we ensure that they are recycling in their operations and making recycling bins available to their customers;

• In order to effectively deal with the volume of dog waste in our litter stream, we launched three dog waste pilots: a carry-in, carry-out pilot in four parks, a septic waste pilot in two parks and a green bin pilot at five parks. The carry-in, carry-out and green bin pilots were the most successful, and we hope to expand these in the near future (for more information on the pilots, click here);

• Through our farm operations, we compost and divert 475 cubic yards of manure and animal bedding annually;

• We audit our waste quarterly from 96 recreation and park facilities to determine how well we are meeting our diversion goals;

• In 2006, we conducted a Parks Waste Audit of 126 parks to determine the composition of materials in our park litter and recycling baskets. As a consequence of the audit, we implemented new Waste and Recycling Standards for all our parks in 2007. The new standards focus on basket twinning, labelling, placement and removal of baskets in problematic areas;

• In follow-up to the 2006 audit, we will be conducting another City-wide parks audit of 160 randomly selected parks in July and August of 2008.