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• What "waste diversion" means
• The benefits of diverting waste
• What Ontario is doing to support waste diversion

What "waste diversion" means 

Waste diversion is an important principle intended to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills or goes to treatment sites such as incinerators. We can do this by following these three steps (the three R's):

• REDUCE the amount of waste we create
• REUSE the waste we create
• RECYCLE the waste we do not reuse

The benefits of diverting waste 

Waste diversion is critical to building the kind of green economy we want in Ontario. There are significant environmental benefits and real economic opportunities in waste diversion including:

• reclaiming valuable materials that would otherwise have been lost forever
• avoiding emission of pollutants, including greenhouse gases
• encouraging the development of innovative, economy-driving new recycling technologies

What Ontario is doing to support waste diversion 

Ontario is actively engaged in a number of activities to encourage greater waste diversion. Primary emphasis is on diversion programs under the Waste Diversion Act.

Ontario’s waste diversion programs cover a wide range of materials and are some of the broadest in North America, including the highly successful Blue Box system. Municipal Blue Box programs have recycled about 6.8 million tonnes of household packaging and printed paper since 2003 – enough to fill the Rogers Centre more than 10 times.

In the last three years, the ministry has established three new waste diversion programs targeting municipal hazardous and special wastes, used tires and e-wastes.

Ontario’s efforts to divert waste are working. They are keeping more than three million tonnes of waste out of landfills and our waterways every year.

Ontario’s programs are protecting the environment and helping the economy – seven jobs for every thousand tonnes of waste diverted.