Pilot project: Waste reduction and diversion

We fund pilot projects for initiatives that have the potential to help you divert at least 60% of municipal solid waste from your landfill, no matter how much you’re already diverting (i.e., 0-59%). If your municipality has already achieved the 60% target, your project must demonstrate the potential to move beyond it. If you are from a remote community, your diversion project must target a diversion rate of 15% over your current baseline. This funding helps Canadian cities and communities of all sizes reduce, reuse and recycle material that would otherwise enter the waste stream.

Pilot projects assess solutions in real-life conditions. They evaluate either a small-scale version of a project or a full-scale, replicable version.
You may compare several options or assess one option’s ability to divert solid waste from landfills. If your municipality is responsible for institutional and commercial waste, you may include it in your pilot project. 

You may compare several options or assess one option’s ability to divert solid waste from landfills. You may include multi-residential, institutional, commercial, and industrial waste in your pilot project, and may consider partnerships that could strengthen the business case of the options being piloted

Your pilot should assess whether the project meets the necessary requirements (e.g. financial, technical), has a solid business case and the ability to deliver strong environmental, financial and social benefits directly to your community or through replication in other municipalities. Your project’s outcomes should help you decide whether to scale up the use of the solution you are piloting.

Pilot projects related to construction and expansion landfill or those related solely to constructing transfer stations are not eligible.

Examples of what you might pilot:

• Organics collection programs and processing facilities
• Reduction, reuse or recycling programs and infrastructure (e.g., eco-centres, zero-waste or circular economy initiatives) 
• Economic incentives to encourage diversion (e.g., pay-as-you-throw, targeted landfill fees)
• Waste management systems that increase the diversion of waste from landfills
• Thermal treatment processes (for municipalities that have already achieved a waste diversion rate of at least 60%)

Target

Divert at least 60% of municipal solid waste from your landfill, or move beyond the 60% mark if you have already achieved it. If you are from a remote community, achieve a diversion rate of 15% over your current baseline. 

What we’re looking to fund

FCM funds pilot projects that demonstrate most of the following characteristics:

• Transformative potential: The pilot project test solutions (e.g., knowledge, practices, technologies) that are beyond business-as-usual. The pilot project:
  • Is likely to result in a project that demonstrates significant performance improvements (e.g., improved levels of service, cost savings, energy efficiency, increased resiliency, environmental protection, improved human health)
  • Is audacious in that it requires a municipality to take on uncertainty over known best practices to achieve greater environmental benefits
  • Is designed to build the capacity of key stakeholders (e.g., municipal staff, elected officials, local trades)
  • Has the potential to generate new knowledge for the sector
  • Has a high likelihood of being replicated if successful

• Significant impacts: The project has the potential, at full scale, to generate significant measurable environmental results as well as economic and social benefits.
• Strong implementation framework: The project plan is robust and includes appropriate stakeholder engagement, planning, risk management and resourcing.

How to apply