Waste Reduction Week in Canada: October 21-27

Since 2001 the Waste Reduction Week in Canada campaign has engaged Canadians to better understand the issues of waste and the opportunities they have to accelerate our transition to a circular economy. Starting with a focus on recycling education and collection events, it has now expanded into a month-long celebration. 

Now part of the larger month-long campaign, Waste Reduction Week continues to educate about the waste reduction component of a circular economy, focusing on major waste streams and topics.

This Year’s Waste Reduction Week Themes

Looking to amplify Circular Economy Month and Waste Reduction Week? Check the Promotional Kits page for images and text to share online. The Waste Reduction Week theme image can be found in the General Public Kit for download.

Repair Monday

Monday, October 21st, 2024

Repair is a great way to save money, learn new skills, and support your local repair shops and tradespeople. The concept of getting together to repair things in your community isn’t new: the first official repair café was launched 15 years ago!

Facts & Stats

There are over 58 officially registered repair cafes throughout Canada. Check the map and see if there’s one near you—they would be happy to help you try to fix your things for free! Can’t find one near you? Consider hosting one yourself.
Value retention processes like repair prevent 1.6 million tonnes of CO2e from being emitted and avoids the extraction of 470,000 tonnes of raw materials.
Of the $56 billion CAD that VRPs are estimated to generate annually, repair makes up $37 billion CAD of this total.
Repairing something instead of replacing it prevents the need for a new product to be made, preventing the creation of 80-95% of greenhouse gas emissions.
More and more people are participating in repair all over the world. According to the Open Repair Alliance dataset, over 200,000 repair attempts at community repair events (like repair cafés) were recorded all over the world since 2012, with over 53% of devices fixed.

Participate in International Repair Day here!

Textiles Tuesday

Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024

Did you know Canadians throw out nearly 500 million kilograms (or about a billion pounds) of clothing and fabric-containing home goods every year? Globally, textiles waste has increased dramatically due to the rise in clothing consumption and production.

Textiles Tuesday raises awareness on the environmental consequences of clothing and textiles consumption and provides information on how you can extend the life of your clothing.

The way we currently produce clothing and textiles is linear: we take resources, make clothing, and then dispose of them. The materials used to make clothing are often not sustainable and have a large environmental impact. These clothes either do not last very long or are discarded after only a short period of time, after which the materials are mostly sent to landfill or incinerated.

Facts & Stats

Thinking circular about our clothing and textiles has more benefits than you might realize!
- It improves the wellbeing of our communities by factoring in living wages, creating local jobs, and increasing our resiliency against things like climate change.
- Doing “circular” business becomes more affordable. Materials become cheaper when there is higher demand, so recycled materials become cheaper for businesses to use in their products.
- By being mindful of what and how much we’re buying, and what we do with our clothing after we’re done with them, we reduce our impact on the environment.
A circular economy for textiles is designed sustainably from the start: clothes, textiles, and fibres are kept at their “highest value” during use. Once these textiles can’t be used anymore in this form, they are reimagined into other useful items, always avoiding becoming waste.
The rise in production of textiles can be attributed to the rise of fast fashion, with quicker turnaround of new styles, increased number of collections offered per year, and lower prices.
Canadians on average purchase 70 new articles of clothing a year.
Designing and producing clothes of higher quality and providing access to them through circular business models—such as rental services, clothing swaps, and repair services—will shift our perception of clothing from being disposable to becoming long-lasting.
The textile, apparel, and footwear industries have historically been a leading force of industrialization around the world. With their experience and expertise in production, marketing and sales brands are in the best position to pursue and position circular business models as attractive and fashionable options.
The easiest thing we can do is increase the average number of times our clothes are worn.
By purchasing clothing made with reused and sustainable materials, we send a clear message to companies that sustainable textile production is important. These practices will become more commonplace if the demand is there.
Plastics and textiles go hand-in-hand: every time we wash synthetic materials like polyester and nylon, tiny plastic fibres break off and up to 40% of these microfibres end up as ocean plastics.
By only washing what really needs to be washed, air-drying our laundry when possible, and spot-washing to extend time between washes, we can decrease the wear and tear on our clothing and reduce the amount of microfibres entering our waterways.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation:
- From 2000-2015, clothing production approximately doubled, driven by a growing middle-class population across the globe and increased per capita sale.
- Less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing, which is equal to more than USD $100 billion worth of materials lost to disposal each year.
- The textiles industry relies mostly on non-renewable resources – 98 million tonnes in total per year – including oil to produce synthetic fibres, fertilisers to grow cotton, and chemicals to produce, dye, and finish fibres and textiles.
- It is estimated that more than half of fast fashion produced is disposed of in under a year.
- After clothing is used, almost all the value in the materials they are made from is lost.
- Of the total fibre input used for clothing, 87% is landfilled or incinerated, representing a lost opportunity of more than USD $100 billion annually.
- As much as 73% of material going into the clothing system is lost after final garment use, 10% is lost during garment production (e.g. as offcuts) 60 and 2% is sent to landfill or incineration from garments that are produced, yet never make it to market.
- In total, people around the world dispose clothing at a rate equivalent to an entire garbage truck load per second.
In 2021, a report estimated over 1.3 billion kg (1.3 million metric tonnes) of used and waste apparel were disposed of in Canada. Of this, about 240,000 tonnes were diverted for reuse, though some of this was downcycled into rags—not keeping these materials at their “highest value”.
South of the border, the United States was estimated to produce approximately 17.3 billion kg (17 million imperial tons) of textile waste in 2018.
Each year, people consume more than 80 billion pieces of new clothing, making the clothing industry one of the world’s biggest polluters.
It takes 2,700 litres of water to make one new t-shirt.
On average, we only wear 50% of our clothes – the rest sits unused in our closets.

E-Waste Wednesday

Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024

In 2022, the world produced 62 billion kg of electronic waste (e-waste)—the equivalent of 1.55 million trucks—double the amount generated in 2010 (Global e-waste monitor, 2024).

It’s time for remanufacturing, reuse, and recycling economies to catch up. Less waste can be produced through circular approaches to product design, business models, and procurement. By thinking ahead at the product design phase, we can ensure our devices can be repaired, re-used, recycled or returned – keeping them out of landfill, and reducing the amount of materials we extract from the Earth.

Facts & Stats

Electronic waste (e-waste) includes unwanted electronic equipment, such as smart devices and used cables, as well as batteries and fluorescent lights (including compact fluorescent lights). The parts that make up your electronics, such as steel, glass, copper, aluminum, plastics and precious metals, can be recovered and made into new products.
Consider donating or selling your electronic item instead of disposing them in your garbage. If we continue to throw out our devices, or store them in a closet in perpetuity, we are following old habits of the linear economy (take-make-waste). To think circular, let’s repair, replace parts (refurbish), and encourage businesses and manufacturers to take back devices for remanufacturing.
Manufacturers and businesses can adopt reverse logistics measures to collect devices back for repair, refurbish, and remanufacture.
The best way to reduce the impact that we have on the environment is to make sure that we can use the gadgets that we already have in our pockets for as long as possible.
E-waste is hazardous material. Over time, electronics can leak toxic elements, like mercury and lead, which can be harmful to the environment and to humans. If thrown in the garbage, device batteries can cause fires at material recycling facilities. Donating your electronics for reuse or recycling them at safely managed sites helps control the hazards. Recycling also allows reliable resources found in electronics — recyclable plastics and even gold — to be reclaimed.
On average, consumers keep cell phones for only two years before they trade them in or throw them out.
A 2018 study from Tsinghua University in Beijing and Sydney’s Macquarie University found it was 13 times cheaper to mine electronic waste than it was to source new minerals by extracting it from the environment.
According to The Global E-waste Monitor 2024, Canada generated an estimated 770 million kg of electronic waste in 2022, and the United States generated nearly 10 times that, at 7,200 million kg.
Of the 62 billion kilograms of e-waste generated globally, half of this waste was valuable metals by weight, including $15 billion USD of gold and $19 billion USD of copper (ITU, updated 2024).
The Global E-waste Monitor 2020 report found that the world dumped a record 53.6 million tonnes of e-waste last year — equivalent to the the weight of 350 cruise ships the size of the Queen Mary 2, or enough to form a line 125 kilometres long. That’s an increase of 21 per cent in five years, the report said. Just 17.4 per cent of it was recycled, meaning that an estimated $57 billion worth of gold, silver, copper, platinum and other high-value, recoverable materials used as components were mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse.
It takes roughly 240 kg (530 pounds) of fossil fuels; 22 kg (48 pounds) of chemicals and 1.5 tons (1,524 litres) of water to manufacture a brand new computer.

Organize a collection event

A majority of households have old electronics kicking around. As Canadian municipalities do not offer curbside e-waste collection, many residents rely on collection events for proper management of these materials. That’s why on Wednesday of Waste Reduction Week (or throughout the Circular Economy Month!) we encourage organizations, schools, and municipalities to host an e-waste collection event for reuse and/or responsible recycling.

Plastics Thursday

Thursday, October 24th, 2024

Since the 1950s 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been generated around the world and only 23 per cent of those plastics have been recovered or recycled. It is estimated that an additional 12 billion tonnes of plastic will be lost to disposal by 2050.

Plastics Thursday highlights how the circular economy can reduce the use and waste of plastics; motivate improved recyclability of plastic goods; and increase the value of recycled plastic by improving product design, use, and end of life management. On this day, we focus our recognition and celebration of champions that support the need to reduce plastic waste and are doing their part to take action.

Did you know that some shampoo bottles, shoes and other materials are being produced using plastic waste recovered from oceans? You can now build a deck with recycled plastic lumber and buy boots made from plastic water bottles. Join us on Thursday to learn more about how companies are turning plastic waste into a business opportunity.

Facts & Stats

Plastics Thursday highlights how the circular economy can improve plastic management along the value chain and reduce its waste, preventing it from entering the environment; motivate improved recyclability of plastic goods; and increase the value of recycled plastic by improving product design, use, and end of life management.

Make simple changes in your everyday life to reduce your plastic footprint. Every action counts.
Everyone has a role to play to reduce plastic waste and to tackle plastic pollution: governments, companies, the recycling industry, and individuals.
Ongoing interaction between individuals, governments, and businesses can evolve our linear take-make-waste model of consumption to one that is circular and regenerative by design.
A circular economy for plastics uses less plastic material and designs products and packaging for longer life through reuse, effective recycling or composting and reduces plastic lost to disposal and the environment.
A circular economy for plastics minimizes wasteful use of plastics; produces plastics from renewable resources powered by renewable energy; reuses and recycles plastics within the economy without any being lost to the environment; and minimizes or eliminates waste and emissions.
Using recycled (or post-consumer resin plastic (PCR)) as material for new products inputs displaces the need to create brand new plastic made from fossil fuels. This is a key aspect of the circular economy where plastics that would have traditionally been disposed of are kept in use and never lost to disposal or the environment.
Engaging circular economy principles in product design and business models can avoid plastic waste.
Unrecovered plastics material represented a lost opportunity of CA$7.8 billion for Canada in 2016, based on the value of virgin resin material. This is the economic potential of improving plastics management and recycling.
Approximately 40% of the plastic produced each year is packaging, used once and thrown away.
Only nine per cent of the 3.2 million tonnes of plastic waste Canadians produce each year is recycled, according to a 2019 report based on data from 2016.
An estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic ends up in our oceans each year—that’s the equivalent of one garbage truck full of plastic every minute.
By 2050, it’s estimated there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish, by weight.
The economic value of plastic lost to waste in Canada is $8 billion yearly and expected to increase to more than $11 billion by 2030.
In 2016, about 29,000 tonnes of plastic waste was littered into our environment in Canada – that is as heavy as almost 300 Blue Whales! Close to 10,000 tonnes of plastics enter the Great Lakes every year from Canada and the United States.
Worldwide, roughly 90% of new plastic products are made from fossil fuels.
Recycling 1 tonne of plastics prevents up to 2 tonnes of carbon pollution.

Visit the Plastic Action Centre

The Plastic Action Centre in an independent open-source repository that gathers information to educate, engage, and empower action on plastics. Recycling Council of Ontario has developed the Plastic Action Centre to become a knowledge hub to provide governments, businesses, educators, researchers, and citizens the necessary scope of information to take meaningful action on plastics.

All plastics resources for Waste Reduction Week have been moved to PlasticActionCentre.ca. Have a resource or news on plastics? Submit your materials to the Plastic Action Centre.

Food Waste Friday

Friday, October 25th, 2024

Take the Food Waste Pledge!

Take the pledge and commit to making choices that will keep your food from becoming waste. You can take the pledge as an individual, school, business/organization, household, or community.

When you take the Food Waste Pledge, you’ll commit to:

Learn about food waste in Canada
Take action to reduce your food waste by:
Planning meals and making a grocery list
Storing fruits and vegetables properly so they last longer
Getting creative with leftovers
Thinking about expiry dates
Compost leftover organics

Share your food waste reduction tips and encourage others to take the pledge on social media using the hashtag #WasteReductionWeek.

Facts & Stats

According to the updated report by Second Harvest and Value Chain Management International (October 2024):
- Across Canada, nearly 46.5% of all food produced is wasted – that’s 21.18 million metric tonnes of food waste, nearly 41.7% of which is still edible – enough to feed more than 17 million people every year! This amounts to a staggering loss of $58 billion in value.
- Canada’s food waste is equivalent to 25.7 million tonnes of CO2e annually.
- When organic material is sent to landfill to decompose it releases methane into the atmosphere, which is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and amongst the two largest waste streams found in landfills in Canada. When composted food waste can turn into a valuable nutrient in compost it can then be applied to farming. When broken down in an anaerobic digester methane can be captured to produce renewable natural gas.
- When edible food is redirected to food rescue organizations for distribution it maintains its highest value and security is improved for those that need it most: children’s breakfast programs, community centres, drop-in centres, and shelters.
In Canada, according to the updated report by Second Harvest and Value Chain Management International (October 2024), the most prominently wasted foods by weight and value are:
- Field crops: 3.40 million tonnes, valued at $27.62 billion CAD
- Produce: 3.39 million tonnes, valued at $12.56 billion CAD
- Dairy: 1.29 million tonnes, valued at $11.02 billion CAD
- Meat & Poultry: 0.38 million tonnes, valued at $4.93 billion CAD
- Marine: 0.07 million tonnes, valued at $1.39 billion CAD
- Sugars: 0.28 million tonnes, valued at $0.36 billion CAD
- Eggs: 0.03 million tonnes, valued at $0.19 billion CAD
According to Love Food Hate Waste’s analysis of 2022 data, every day in Canada, we waste:
- 130,000 heads of lettuce,
- 1,300,000 tomatoes,
- 2,600,000 potatoes,
- 650,000 loaves of bread,
- 1,300,000 apples,
- 640,000 bananas,
- 1,000,000 cups of milk
- 470,000 eggs
One-fifth, or 19%, of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted every year. That’s one billion meals a day wasted, due in large part to household food waste practices. That’s a global loss of roughly CAD $1.35 trillion.
Globally, if food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the U.S.
The resources needed to produce the food that becomes lost or wasted has a carbon footprint of about 3.3 billion tons of CO2.

Sharing Saturday

Saturday, October 26th, 2024

This week, you have learned how to repair your things and reuse things as many times as possible. But what if you need to buy something new, like a push lawn mower or a drill for that project you’ve been putting off? You can avoid purchasing new things – or anything at all – by borrowing and lending with your local community.

By shifting to access over ownership (a.k.a. borrowing and lending instead of buying a new item for yourself), you can save money and reduce demand for the manufacturing of new things. Think about it – how many times would you need that drill over the next 5 years, and how much space would it take up in your home?

By choosing access over ownership, the responsibility falls to manufacturers to make longer lasting and more efficient products that are designed with repair and reuse as primary considerations. Millions of Canadians engage in the sharing economy everyday – through ride sharing apps, libraries, rental services, online music/video streaming and more – often not realizing their contribution to the circular economy.

Facts & Stats

Bike share programs help you get around while staying fit, and can be a true time-saver in dense cities like Toronto (launched in 2014: Bike Share Toronto), Montreal (launched in 2009: BIXI Montréal), or Vancouver (launched in 2016: Mobi by Rogers). The Toronto Bike Share program saw an increase of 950,000 riders between 2022 and 2023 alone! (Toronto Parking Authority Board of Directors Meeting, 2023).
In 2023, carpooling program and app Poparide saved Canadians $10 million, and 26,000 metric tonnes of CO2e since 2015. In 2023 alone, this service helped Canadians offset 12,300 metric tonnes of CO2e, the equivalent of the annual climate pollution of 3,500 people.
An example of the sharing economy in action is an online regional platform in Ontario. York Region and Peel Region have supported the development of the Share, Reuse, Repair Hub to improve citizens’ circular economy education and their awareness of local share, reuse, and repair resources. Proudly developed by Circular Innovation Council, you can help the platform expand to municipalities throughout Canada! Individuals and municipalities can share support for the Hub’s expansion here.

Swap Sunday

Canadians from coast to coast will engage in Circular Economy Month by hosting and attending clothing and item swaps – a great way to save money, clear space in your home, get things for free, and connect with your community. Swap Sunday shows Canadians how simple it can be to keep everyday products in circulation, and encourages them to take part in events in their community, school, or workplace.

Attending a clothing swap this October? Post photos or videos online using the hashtag #CircularEconomyMonth and share with the community!