OWMA
With more than 370 tractor trailer loads of Ontario waste being trucked across the boarder to Michigan each day, six days a week, and with state lawmakers threatening to close the border to the province’s waste, it was clear in 2005 that Ontario was on the brink of a waste management crisis. Hellingman was hired by the Ontario Waste Management Association to bring this problem to the attention of the public and government officials, in an effort to persuade the province to develop an integrated waste management system – including streamlining the process to approve new landfills. We held a news conference about the problem, organized editorial board meetings with national media outlets and developed op ed pieces that ran in newspapers across Ontario. As a result, the City of Toronto purchased a landfill site near London, Ontario, to dispose of its household waste, and two new landfills were subsequently approved by the province – one in Niagara Falls and another in Watford, Ontario.
