Waste Disposal Site and Environmental Services Company Fined a Total of $50,000 for Environmental Protection Act Violations

Table of Contents

1. Content

Convicted - York1 Trillium Transfer Ltd. and The Recycling Depot GP Inc.

Court Location -Toronto

Description of Offence -The convictions are for including false or misleading information in a document submitted to the ministry.

Date of Offences - During the period beginning on or about February 1, 2022, and ending on or about September 10, 2022.

Date of Convictions - December 13, 2024

Penalties Imposed -

• York1 Trillium Transfer Ltd. was convicted of one violation under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), fined $25,000 plus a victim fine surcharge (VFS) of $6,250, and given three months to pay.

• The Recycling Depot GP Inc. was convicted of one violation under the EPA, fined $25,000 plus a VFS of $6,250, and given three months to pay.

Background -

• York1 Trillium Transfer Ltd., operating as York1 Trillium Recovery, operates a waste disposal site at 195 Bethridge Road in the City of Toronto. The site is used for the transfer and processing of solid non-hazardous waste limited to excess soils and soils containing construction and demolition debris.

• An Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) issued to the site identifies The Recycling Depot GP Inc. as the owner of the ECA.

• The ECA requires the defendants to create an annual report that includes a summary of the amount of excess soil received and transferred from the site and the final disposal destinations of the soil. The ECA also requires the annual reports to be maintained on-site for a minimum of seven years from the date of creation and to be made available to the ministry upon request.

• In September 2022, an email was sent to the ministry on behalf of York1 and the Recycling Depot providing the 2021 annual report.

• The report listed daily inbound and outbound excess soil shipments to and from the site in 2021. However, the report failed to record 458 inbound soil shipments to the site from another property in the City of Toronto that records from the source site confirmed were received on 10 days in 2021. As a result, the 2021 annual report was incomplete.

• The defendants acknowledged that there were clerical errors in the 2021 annual report and provided a corrected version to the ministry in January 2023.

• The ministry's Environmental Investigations and Enforcement Branch investigated and laid charges which resulted in the convictions.