Trump’s 50% Trash Tariff Has Ford Government Warning Ontario Landfills Could Fill in Five Years

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Ontario’s garbage problem has suddenly become a trade problem. A White House proclamation signed October 23 adds a 50 per cent duty to several Canadian waste categories, including municipal waste, beginning October 30. That threatens a disposal route Ontario has relied on for years and has pushed an already serious landfill-capacity problem into the centre of the province’s tariff response.

Environment Minister Todd McCarthy says Ontario normally has roughly a decade of landfill capacity left, but warned the new U.S. tariff could shrink that runway to as little as five years if cross-border waste shipments are materially disrupted. The warning comes as Premier Doug Ford’s government moves to ease approvals for new landfills, promote more energy-from-waste projects and overhaul parts of Ontario’s recycling and organics rules.

A 50% Tariff Is About to Hit Specific Canadian Waste Shipments

The U.S. measure is narrower than a blanket tax on everything Canadians throw away, but it squarely covers major waste categories. The October 23 presidential proclamation adds a 50 per cent ad valorem duty to selected Canadian goods under Section 338 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930. Its annex specifically lists municipal waste, sewage sludge and clinical waste among the newly covered tariff classifications. The changes apply to covered goods entered for consumption in the United States on or after 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time on October 30, 2026.

That timing gives Ontario little room to treat the announcement as an abstract trade dispute. The White House says the Section 338 duties apply even when covered goods would otherwise qualify under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. For waste haulers and municipalities that have built cross-border disposal into long-term operating plans, the immediate issue is whether the new duty changes the economics of U.S. disposal or causes companies to redirect loads. Either outcome could send pressure back toward Ontario’s own landfill network at a time when approved capacity is already tightening.

Ontario Has Been Sending Millions of Tonnes of Waste South

Ontario’s vulnerability did not appear overnight. Waste to Resource Ontario estimates that the province generated about 16.88 million tonnes of waste in 2024 and landfilled 12.75 million tonnes. Of that landfilled amount, 3.44 million tonnes—27 per cent—was exported to the United States, primarily to Michigan, New York and Ohio. The same industry report put Ontario’s approved landfill capacity at 125.61 million tonnes, with a large share concentrated in a relatively small number of sites.

Michigan’s own data show how central that state is to the cross-border system. Its Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy reported that Canadian sources sent 3.19 million U.S. tons of waste to Michigan landfills in fiscal 2025, equal to about 14.1 per cent of all waste disposed in the state. Canada remained Michigan’s largest source of imported waste even after those shipments fell nearly eight per cent from fiscal 2024. In practical terms, Ontario is not replacing a marginal outlet. It is confronting possible disruption to a disposal channel that has absorbed millions of tons of Canadian waste each year.

The Five-Year Figure Is a Warning, Not a Fixed Expiry Date

McCarthy’s five-year warning is striking because it is shorter than other recent capacity projections, and the difference matters. The minister said Ontario’s landfills would otherwise be full in roughly 10 years, but that Trump’s tariff could shorten the timeline to five years if it remains in place. He did not publish a detailed model showing how much cross-border waste would return to Ontario, how quickly exporters would change routes or how much new capacity could come online during that period.

An industry estimate provides a useful comparison. Waste to Resource Ontario projects that the province’s approved landfill capacity would be depleted around 2037 if exports to U.S. landfills continue. If the U.S. border effectively closes to Ontario waste, its projection moves the exhaustion date forward to 2034. Those dates are not identical to McCarthy’s warning because they rest on different assumptions. The responsible way to read the five-year figure is therefore as a government stress scenario: a signal that a sudden loss or sharp reduction of U.S. disposal access could accelerate a capacity problem Ontario was already expected to face in the 2030s.

The Ford Government Wants to Clear a Major Landfill Approval Barrier

Ontario’s policy response is already moving through Queen’s Park. Bill 140, the Building Ontario Faster Act, 2026, received first reading on October 27. One of the government’s waste proposals would remove the requirement that proponents of new large landfills secure formal municipal support before submitting a comprehensive environmental assessment. Under the current Environmental Assessment Act, a proponent must obtain council resolutions from the host municipality and, in specified circumstances, nearby municipalities with authorized residential land within 3.5 kilometres of the proposed site.

The province argues that the rule has become a barrier to creating new disposal capacity. Its Environmental Registry notice says only one large new landfill has been approved in Ontario in the past 20 years, despite several expansions of existing facilities since 2018. Removing the formal support requirement would not eliminate environmental assessment or public consultation, and municipalities would still be able to state their views during the process. But it would reduce their ability to stop a proposal at the front end simply by withholding the resolution currently required by law.

Energy From Waste Is Moving Back to the Centre of the Debate

McCarthy is also pushing energy-from-waste facilities as part of the answer. Ontario has been preparing regulatory changes that would recognize the biogenic portion of residual municipal waste as a renewable energy source and allow some new or expanded energy-from-waste projects to use a single Renewable Energy Approval process. The province estimates that the residual waste burned at these facilities contains roughly 45 to 55 per cent biogenic material, including wood, food waste, fabric and soiled paper, alongside non-biogenic materials such as plastics.

Ontario already has a large operating example in the Durham York Energy Centre in Courtice. Durham Region says the facility processes about 140,000 tonnes of residential garbage each year and generates enough electricity to power more than 10,000 homes, while also recovering metals. That does not make incineration consequence-free. Environment and Climate Change Canada notes that both landfilling and incineration can release pollutants to air and water, although modern engineering and pollution controls can reduce health and environmental impacts. The policy choice is therefore not simply landfill versus “clean” burning; it is a trade-off among capacity, emissions, cost, local acceptance and how much material can be diverted before disposal.

The Next Landfill Fight Will Be About Who Has to Host It

The most difficult part of expanding waste infrastructure may be political rather than technical. McCarthy has said the government wants willing municipalities to host new landfills or energy-from-waste facilities, and he has pointed to potential economic benefits for host communities. At the same time, the proposed removal of the statutory municipal-support requirement means a local council would no longer have the same formal gatekeeping power over a new large landfill proposal. That tension is likely to become sharper if the U.S. tariff quickly redirects waste back into Ontario.

The dispute over the former landfill near Dresden, in Chatham-Kent, shows how combustible these projects can become. Ontario removed environmental assessment requirements for the York1 waste disposal site project in June 2025, while the municipality continued to oppose the proposal and pursue legal avenues. The province’s new approach promises continued consultation, but consultation is different from a legally required municipal endorsement. If Ontario needs new capacity on a compressed timetable, the question will not only be how many sites are needed. It will be which communities are asked to take them, under what conditions and with what degree of local consent.

Ontario Can Buy More Time by Sending Less Material to Disposal

New landfills and incinerators may expand disposal options, but Ontario’s own data show that diversion remains one of the biggest levers available. The province says roughly 60 per cent of Ontario’s waste comes from the industrial, commercial and institutional sector, while only about 15 per cent of that material is reused or recycled. It also says organic material makes up about one-third of the waste stream and that more than half of those organics are still sent to landfill. Keeping more food waste, packaging and recyclable business material out of disposal sites would directly extend the life of existing capacity.

The government is proposing changes to business-recycling rules, new reporting for food and organic waste diversion, and a review of the Strategy for a Waste-Free Ontario ahead of its required 2027 update. Some organics diversion deadlines that had been set for 2025 would be pushed to 2028, while the province develops guidance and tracking tools. That combination—faster disposal approvals alongside slower implementation of some diversion targets—will be watched closely. Trump’s tariff did not create Ontario’s landfill shortage. It exposed how much the province’s waste system depends on exporting the problem, and how expensive that dependence can become when trade policy changes overnight.

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