As a society, we produce too much garbage, wasting money and resources, and causing environmental problems. That’s why the top priorities in sustainable waste management are reducing the amount of garbage we create in the first place through better product and packaging design and more selective purchasing by consumers and businesses, and re-using as much of our left-over products and materials as possible.

In the Region’s Solid Waste Plan, one of the goals is a 10% reduction, per person, in the amount of waste we generate by 2020 (compared with 2010 volumes).

Reducing waste generation per person requires something beyond ‘more recycling’. It requires fundamental shifts in our economic and supply chain systems to reduce the amount of ‘stuff’ that flows through homes, organizations and businesses.
For this to happen, manufacturers need incentives to design waste out of their products and consumers need to be incentivized to choose more environmentally-preferable options -opting for recyclable products or more durable products wherever possible.

These shifts in design and consumer behavior cannot be achieved by Metro Vancouver, B.C., or even Canada acting in isolation, they require collaborative efforts by citizens, businesses and other levels of government to influence global brand owners and manufacturers.

What is Metro Vancouver doing to increase waste reduction and reuse efforts?

• Raising awareness
  Metro Vancouver has no regulatory role in telling people what to buy but we are finding ways to influence what people buy and play a lead role in stimulating conversations with key sectors around making choices to reduce waste.
  
  Our outreach program includes advertising campaigns, school programs, social media, public conferences, waste reduction at special events and more.
  
  Metro also works with motivated residents to stimulate local community zero waste challenges, where citizens develop their own processes to reduce waste. Read the results of the Glenbrook North Community Zero Waste Challenge
  
  
• Working with businesses
  Metro Vancouver has several initiatives in places for engaging with businesses and manufacturers to reduce waste before it even gets created. These include:
• Collaborating with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to create a National Zero Waste Council - a unity of leaders across all orders of government, businesses and the non-profit sector working in collaboration to reduce and prevent waste by advocating for product and packaging re-design. Read more
• Supporting Business Improvement Associations (BIAs) to create collectives whereby waste diversion resources are shared. Currently, we are working with the Strathcona BIA to identify three additional BIAs to do similar challenges in 2013. Read more
• Working closely with key sectors which produce large amounts of waste going to landfill and supporting them to implement regulatory changes. Currently, Metro Vancouver is working with the restaurant and grocery sectors (via their associations) to support their transition towards a ban on organics in the garbage by 2015. We are also supporting the construction and demolition sectors (which produce about 20 per cent of all waste disposed annually in the region) to meet a new bylaw which will require recycling on construction and demolition sites by 2015. Read more