Ontario’s landfill crisis: The cost of inaction

Waste management experts warn that failing to address Ontario’s landfill capacity crisis will have costly consequences for taxpayers and the environment as the province is projected to run out of room for its trash within the next decade.

Calvin Lakhan, director of York University’s circular innovation hub warns, if this limit is reached: “The cost of landfilling goes up enormously.”

More garbage will need to be shipped out of province, or overseas, and when the costs of waste disposal go up, Lakhan said, illegal dumping also tends to increase.

“When people don’t the ability to safely and adequately dispose of their waste,” said Lakhan. “They will often dump the waste in like ravines and parks.”

In the 1980’s, Ontario faced a similar landfill capacity crisis, and it led to birth of the