This bill amends the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, 2016 to force a short, evidence‑gathering exercise and ongoing public reporting on organic waste in Ontario landfills. It requires the Minister to form a working group within 60 days to review source‑separated organics programs across residential, commercial, industrial and institutional sectors and to report recommended diversion goals and actions within six months.
Beyond the one‑off review, the bill creates a standing obligation: the Minister must prepare and publish annual reports about organic waste in landfill sites, including quantities, sectoral breakdowns, greenhouse gas emissions, program evaluations and a plan for reduction. The statute also authorizes the Minister to request information from specified actors (the Authority, municipalities, landfill operators, service companies and property owners) to support those reports.
For compliance officers and municipal planners, the bill signals imminent data requests and a sharper provincial focus on measuring and benchmarking organics diversion.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires the Minister to establish a working group within 60 days to review source‑separated organics programs and recommend diversion goals; the group must report within six months. It also requires the Minister to publish annual reports on organic waste in landfill sites containing defined metrics and plans for reduction.
Who It Affects
Municipalities, landfill site operators, companies that collect/process/haul waste, owners of commercial/institutional/industrial properties and the Authority are directly affected through participation, reporting obligations, or information requests. The Minister and ministry staff must manage the working group, publication, and response process.
Why It Matters
The law creates a standardized, recurring data stream on organic waste and landfill emissions that can drive provincial policy choices and investment decisions. By prescribing report content and timelines, it narrows the informational gap that has hampered evidence‑based expansion of composting infrastructure and organics programs.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill inserts two new sections into Ontario’s Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act: one establishes a short, expert working group to map the state of source‑separated organics programs and to study how to divert organic material from landfills to composting facilities; the other creates an annual public reporting obligation about organics in landfill sites. "Landfill site" and "source separated organics program" are defined in the new provisions, anchoring the review and reporting to particular program types and disposal locations.
The working group must be created within 60 days of the section coming into force and include at least 11 minister‑appointed members drawn from specified interests (the Authority, resident associations, landfill operators, and companies that handle waste). Its review must cover progress under Ontario’s 2017 circular economy strategy, quantify organic waste in landfills (including sectoral shares and greenhouse gas emissions), identify drivers of disposal, and examine successful programs in comparable jurisdictions.
The group must produce a methodology, findings, recommended diversion goals and short‑ and long‑term actions within six months of formation.Once the Minister receives the working group report, the Minister has two express obligations: lay the report before the Legislative Assembly and publish it online within 15 days of receipt, and then deliver a formal response to the Assembly within three months. That response must also be published.
The annual reporting duty then begins: the Minister must publish yearly data and analysis on organic waste quantities and percentages in landfills, sectoral contributions, emissions from organics, evaluations of existing reduction programs and a plan for the reporting year. The statute authorizes the Minister to request information from named parties — the Authority, municipalities, landfill operators, service providers and owners of commercial/institutional/industrial properties — to compile those reports.
The first annual report is due no later than one year after the Minister provides the response to the working group’s report, and the Act comes into force on royal assent.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Minister must establish the working group within 60 days and appoint at least 11 members, including representatives from the Authority, resident associations, landfill operators and waste service companies.
The working group’s report is due within six months and must include its methodology, findings, recommended diversion goals, and short‑ and long‑term actions to divert organics to appropriate composting facilities.
Within 15 days of receiving the working group report the Minister must lay it before the Legislative Assembly and publish it online, and the Minister must provide a formal response to the Assembly within three months of receipt.
Annual reports must report year‑over‑year quantities and percentages of organic waste in landfill sites, sectoral breakdowns (residential, commercial, multi‑residential, institutional, industrial), greenhouse gas emissions from deposited organics, and evaluations of reduction programs.
The Minister may require information from the Authority, municipalities, landfill operators, waste collection/processing/haul companies and owners of commercial, institutional and industrial properties; the first annual report is due within one year after the Minister’s response to the working group report.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Defines key terms tying the duties to specific program types and disposal locations
This short section limits the scope of the new obligations by defining "landfill site" by reference to Part V of the Environmental Protection Act and by defining "source separated organics program" as a municipality‑operated program. That construction signals the legislation’s focus on municipal organics programs and on landfilling as the disposal pathway to be measured and reduced. For implementers, those definitions determine which facilities and programs will appear in the working group’s review and the annual reports.
Fast‑tracked, ministerial working group with specified representatives
The Minister must create the working group within 60 days and appoint at least 11 members; the statute prescribes categories of members to ensure representation from the Authority, resident associations, landfill operators and private service providers. Practically, that forces a mix of regulators, local stakeholders, industry and operators into the same room, which will influence the review’s framing and the political feasibility of recommendations. The ministerial appointment power also gives the Minister control over balance and expertise on the panel.
Detailed analytic mandate: measurements, drivers and comparative programs
The working group’s remit is explicitly technical and comparative: it must quantify organics in landfills (including sectoral shares and emissions), identify primary drivers of disposal to landfill, assess progress under Ontario’s 2017 circular economy strategy, and study jurisdictional models that have succeeded in diverting organics. That scope establishes a clear evidence standard — numbers, causal factors and transferability of policy tools — which sets expectations for the type of data and modelling the group must produce.
Mandatory deliverables with tight timelines and public transparency requirements
The working group must deliver a report within six months; the Minister must lay and publish that report within 15 days of receipt and then provide a formal response to the Assembly within three months. Those deadlines amplify transparency: the public receives both the independent review and the Minister’s take within defined windows. For ministry staff and legislators, the schedule creates predictable points for briefings, consultations and policy follow‑up. It also converts findings into an explicit governmental record that can inform procurement, regulation and funding decisions.
Creates an annual public scorecard on organics in landfills
The annual report list is prescriptive: it must show progress on the 2017 strategy, year‑over‑year quantities and percentages of organics in landfills, sectoral contributions, greenhouse gas emissions from deposited organics, evaluations of implemented programs (successes and failures) and a plan for reduction for the reporting year. The statute fixes both metric types and content expectations, giving planners and analysts a recurring dataset — assuming competent data collection — against which to measure progress and target investments.
Statutory authority to collect data from named actors
To produce the annual reports, the Minister may request information from the Authority, municipalities, landfill operators, waste service companies and owners of commercial/institutional/industrial properties. This provision creates a legal channel for the province to obtain operational and sectoral data that may not be centrally available today. It also establishes who will likely face direct information pulls and therefore should prepare data systems and custody‑management plans.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Provincial policymakers and the Ministry — gain standardized, recurring data and a structured expert review to inform evidence‑based policy, investment and regulatory choices.
- Composting and organics processors — receive clearer signals on demand and potential targets for diversion, improving business planning for capacity investments.
- Municipalities with established organics programs — can use the report to demonstrate performance, justify funding, and benchmark against peers.
- Environmental and climate NGOs and researchers — get a public, regular dataset (including GHG estimates) useful for advocacy, independent analysis and accountability.
- Residents in municipalities that expand organics diversion — may benefit indirectly from reduced landfill use, lower local emissions and expanded curbside services if the reports prompt program growth.
Who Bears the Cost
- Municipalities — will face increased data collection and reporting burdens and may need to upgrade systems to supply consistent, sectoral organics data when requested.
- Landfill site operators and private waste service companies — must supply information to the Minister and can expect heightened scrutiny of landfill inputs and emissions accounting.
- Owners of commercial, institutional and industrial properties — may need to provide operational data and could face new expectations to participate in source‑separation systems.
- The Ministry and the Authority — will incur administrative and analytic costs to stand up the working group, compile annual reports, and evaluate programs without dedicated funding in the bill.
- Smaller service providers and resident associations — may need to allocate time and resources to working group participation or to responding to information requests, which is proportionally more burdensome for small organizations.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between creating robust, public evidence to drive diversion policy and imposing new data and participation burdens on municipalities, operators and property owners without providing funding or regulatory teeth. The bill prioritizes information and transparency as the first step, but the gap between analysis and the capital, operational and regulatory capacity needed to scale diversion may leave recommendations unimplemented.
The bill is narrowly framed as an information and reporting statute; it does not itself create diversion targets, regulatory standards or funding for infrastructure. That design avoids immediate regulatory conflict but shifts the burden of action onto subsequent policy decisions — the reports can recommend steps, but implementation (and the money to do it) is not guaranteed by this Act.
The value of the law therefore depends entirely on the quality, consistency and timeliness of the data collected and on whether the Minister’s response leads to concrete follow‑up.
Operationally, the Act raises familiar implementation problems. Municipalities and private operators use different accounting conventions for waste streams, composting inputs and emissions; harmonizing those data for year‑over‑year comparison will require technical guidance and possibly new measurement protocols.
The statute’s authority to request information is broad but lacks explicit enforcement mechanisms in the text (for example, penalties for non‑compliance), so compliance may rely on cooperation rather than compulsion. Finally, terms such as "appropriate composting facilities" are left undefined and will matter in practice if the working group or later policy efforts aim to redirect significant tonnages away from landfills.
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