Comprehensive Integrated Waste Management Strategy Review

In 2011, City Council approved the Comprehensive Integrated Waste Management Strategy (CIWMS), also known as the Garbage and Recycling Master Plan. It guides how Winnipeg collects, sorts, and gets rid of garbage and recycling. This plan helps keep the city clean and reduces the amount of waste going into our landfills. The CIWMS included 30 recommendations to increase waste diversion from 17 percent to 50 percent by 2020.

Since the CIWMS was approved in 2011, the City has made the following improvements:

• Introduced automated garbage and recycling carts
• Introduced leaf and yard waste collection and composting
• Piloted a biosolids composting program, the pilot turned the biosolids from wastewater processing into soil
• Provided bulky waste (large items) and extra garbage pick-up programs to reduce illegal dumping
• Built a landfill gas and leachate collection systems to remove and monitor pollution
• Opened three 4R Depots: Brady 4R Winnipeg Depot, Pacific 4R Winnipeg Depot, and Panet 4R Winnipeg Depot to increase recycling for items not accepted in the blue recycling carts
• Provided a mattress recycling drop-off program at the Brady 4R depot

While progress has been made since 2011, the City has not met the target of diverting 50 percent of waste from landfills by 2020. Waste diversion reached 32 percent in 2016 and has stayed steady around 30 percent since this time. The main reason our diversion rate is lower when compared to other Canadian cities is because we don’t have a curbside organics collection program for food waste. If there is no program in place, approximately 30 to 40 percent of our waste going to the landfill is food waste.

The City of Winnipeg participates in the National Benchmarking Study which helps us understand our waste diversion in comparison to other Canadian cities. Most have implemented a curbside organics collection program, aside from Regina.

A new residential target of 75 percent has been identified in the City’s Climate Change Action Plan and the Community Energy Investment Roadmap. The City will need to consider new programs and services in the CIWMS review to meet these targets.

Why is the review needed?

• A greater proportion of Winnipeggers are living in apartments and condos, which have unique obstacles for garbage and recycling.
• We need to explore new programs and services to reduce waste going to the landfill.
• We want to make sure our programs and services are meeting residents’ needs.
• We want to build a circular economy in Winnipeg, where we repair, re-use, donate or recycle our items, only throwing them out when the item has no useful life left.
• We want to reduce the environmental impacts of the landfill through methane gas capture and leachate management.
• We need to update targets so they align with new City policies, such as those outlined in OurWinnipeg 2045 and the Climate Change Action Plan.