According to the province, each resident here produces about 842 kilograms of waste every year. That’s about the weight of 60 regular household bags of garbage annually. The government says Saskatchewan produces the second-highest amount of waste per capita in Canada. That’s why a new Solid Waste Management Strategy has been released. Environment Minister Dustin Duncan says it’s a starting point to providing management over the next 20 years. The plan is to reduce the amount of waste generated per person by 30 per cent by the year 2030 and 50 percent by the year 2040. The baseline year would be 2014.

The way to get there involves a multi-pronged approach including: Requiring all landfill operators to be certified by 2025; increase education and awareness; collaborate with municipalities to review and assess barriers to participation in regional solutions and identify options to reduce them; initiate a thorough regulatory review of The Municipal Refuse Management Regulations and associated programs; engage with stakeholders to reduce food waste, and to develop a diversion program for non-residential waste by spring 2022; and engage all key clients in exploring the potential benefits of a landfill levy, similar to what is used in Manitoba.