Reusable Toronto’s Work With Venues & Businesses
A Local Reuse Initiative Highlight
Over the last few years—with increased awareness of the issues with single-use plastic, litter, the fraught recycling industry, and the financial and environmental costs of procurement and waste management—reuse concepts have been making notable gains.
Since Upstream’s Reuse Solutions Network began in 2019, it has grown in membership from a couple dozen to 1300+ advocates, government representatives, NGOs, and reuse entrepreneurs, with new sign ups every week. We have also identified over 35 local reuse groups and coalitions working across the US & Canada. As of now, we’ve tracked 114 total reuse laws in the US & Canada, covering 23% of the total population. Many of these reuse policies—not to mention non-policy work—can be attributed to the work of local coalitions representing dozens of grassroots organizations, who have the insight and relationships needed to make change on-the-ground.
In light of all this activity, this summer we are spotlighting some local reuse initiatives in order to share insights and learnings other community groups can leverage for their own success. Featured here: Reusable Toronto, which has done extensive work with reuse at venues and businesses. Led by the Toronto Environmental Alliance, Reusable Toronto works to eliminate waste and move the City of Toronto towards reuse. They advocate for policy, connect locally, and research to amplify real solutions.
Single-use in Canada & Toronto
Since 2023, six categories of single-use plastics have been banned across Canada, and though the law is being contested in courts by the plastics industry, 82% of Canadians still support this ban. So some municipalities, including Toronto, have been working on passing bylaws and regulations that mirror aspects of the federal ban while they await the outcome of these national lawsuits.
Toronto’s Single-Use Reduction Strategy is robust and moves beyond just banning plastic. It started with a voluntary phase of education and funding, plus support for businesses, and in 2024 the first regulations came into force. These include requirements for customers to ask in order to receive accessories (a “Skip the Stuff” policy) and for businesses to accept BYO cups and bags. Next in the pipeline: potential reuse for onsite dining and reuse at events by-laws.
Collaborative Research
Reusable Toronto teamed up with the University of Toronto Trash Team to interview small businesses across the city. They knew that to effectively pass policy, they would need to assess impact to businesses, as this is of major concern to legislators. And they learned that while there tends to be a lot of lobbying from big chains, the smaller businesses are less concerned, expressing care about the environment and their dislike of litter on the street. They were excited to see more action to remedy the single-use issue and sought guidance and support to do so. Reusable Toronto’s team also found that 92% of customers surveyed want restaurants to do more, and there is strong support for the city to take more action. Having numbers and anecdotes like this was helpful in opening the door to talk to councilors when votes came up.
In 2023-2024, Reusable Toronto conducted some extra concerted business outreach. They worked with a series of waste-focused local grassroots groups and neighborhood groups, plus summer students funded by a federal grant, and they went door to door to businesses across the city, asking questions about what stakeholders thought of single-use waste and reuse solutions. Three out of four restaurants that they talked to are planning or taking action to switch to reusables on some level.
Reuse at Events
While Reusable Toronto is glad to see such willingness at the small business level—and it helps them make the case to City Councilors—they acknowledge that working on systemic change one business at a time, especially when confronted with high startup costs, can create challenges to scale.
Major events are ideal for reuse due to their high volume and closed venues, so Reusable Toronto identified a significant opportunity when they learned the city would be one of the hosts of the FIFA World Cup 2026. Toronto Environmental Alliance secured funding from Environment Climate Change Canada to do a comprehensive study looking at the impact of switching to reuse for the World Cup. Among their calculations: offering reusable cups at the Toronto and Vancouver (another host city) events alone could avoid 2.3 million disposals. They are sharing the report with the FIFA Secretariat in Toronto and in Vancouver and are working on a PR strategy to help advocate for reuse at FIFA.
Leveraging Reusable Toronto’s Strengths to Take the Next Steps
Because TEA is a policy advocacy organization, Reusable Toronto brings policy experience that helps them understand how decisions get made at the municipal level, which has helped them plan strategically. They also credit their contacts at the University of Toronto and York University, as well as community groups, all of which have been valuable in gathering data and creating case studies—information which helps show proof of concept and convince skeptical lawmakers. Finally, Toronto is home to several reuse service providers, which allows them the infrastructure to make reuse more scalable than in some other locations.
Reusable Toronto plans to keep advocating for fully adopting reuse at the FIFA games, particularly at the satellite fan festivals, which municipalities have more control over. They also intend to mobilize community partners and groups to participate in an upcoming municipal consultation, so that councilors and staff can hear about what people want to see in new reuse regulations—all of which is part of their larger strategy of working with multiple community groups to build a larger coalition of stakeholders.
More Reuse Initiative Highlights:
Central Ohio Reuse Coalition’s Reuse Pilot at Coffee Shops
