York Region has proposed key recommendations to the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change on a draft provincial Framework to Reduce Food and Organic Waste in Ontario.

The Region’s recommendations focus on reducing waste, recovering resources, supporting innovative technology and promoting the benefits of recovered food-waste resources. These recommendations follow comments submitted to the Ministry in July 2017 providing input on key priorities for improving how food and organic waste is managed in Ontario.

York Region has provided recommendations that re-emphasize short and long-term actions be taken by the province to address the following four objectives:

• Engaging stakeholders already working on food waste education
• Addressing barriers to recovery programs in the growing multi-residential sector
• Focusing support on innovative technologies that align with provincial climate change and resource recovery targets
• Including compostable packaging and branded organics under the full producer responsibility program

York Region supports the Ministry’s efforts to address food waste and will continue collaborating with our local cities and towns to advance this work.