As we prepare to gather in Victoria in October, dive into our program as we prepare to share solutions for the future of solid waste management in British Columbia.
We kick things off with early access to our Virtual Hall on Monday, September 28 for registered delegates, providing an opportunity to update your networking profile, explore the virtual space, and engage in exclusive Bonus Events designed to enhance your conference experience. All of our pre-conference Bonus Events are included with a full registration, or can be attended individually by those unable to attend the whole conference.
Wednesday boasts a full day of roundtables, tours, panels, workshops, exhibitors, and a Networking Café to meet with friends, nosh, and network. Thursday is a full day of plenary panels, networking breaks, and a fun-filled Dinner and Sock Hop! Friday is another informative, thought-provoking half-day with time to get to your flight, ferry or a leisurely drive home.
Our Theme: More with Less | Tighter budgets. Bigger expectations. Same old story — except the squeeze is sparking real innovation. From AI-driven logistics to regional partnerships, this year’s conference explores how constraint is becoming the catalyst: doing more with less isn’t just survival; it’s strategy. And the less waste we make, the more value, resilience, and resources we keep in play.
More Circulation with Less Landfilling
Ideas from around the world! This great panel gathers four organizations proving that reuse works at every scale — from EV batteries to municipal reuse centres, supermarket packaging, and community lending libraries.
Moment Energy — Reuse at the component level: retired EV batteries
KOLO, Bratislava — Reuse at the city level: a city-run re-use centre
Carrefour & Loop Alliance — Reuse at retail scale: grocery products
Party Kit Network — Reuse at the community level: party kits
Moment Energy
Bratislava Slovakia KOLO
Carrefour & Loop Alliance
Party Kit Network
Tamara Shulman & Associates
More Food Use with Less Food Waste
This will be a very informative panel discussion on localized systems for food waste reduction — how communities are keeping food in use close to where it is grown, sold, and eaten.
Mei Mee Consulting
Thompson-Nicola Regional District
FoodMesh
Salt Spring Abattoir Society
City of Victoria
Delicious options are available and ready to take to your session or pull up a chair in the Networking Cafe!
Pre-registration is required. Sign-up information will be sent to the CWMA E&C Working Group and all registered delegates in September.
Township of Langley
Let's Talk Trash
More Space with Less Uncertainty
Shredding promises a lot: more airspace in the landfill, better compaction, fewer truckloads down the highway. What it doesn’t promise is an easy business case. A shredder is a major capital investment, and the question that keeps surfacing isn’t whether shredding works — it’s whether you can keep an expensive machine busy enough, across enough material streams, to justify buying it. The Capital Regional District and the Regional District of Nanaimo have both been running trials and will share what they’re learning — what got shredded, what it cost, and what the results are telling them so far. Westerra Equipment joins to walk through the equipment side: what these machines can and can’t do, what they require in maintenance and operations, and what “keeping it busy” could look like in practice. * Following base presentations, we open up the discussion to everyone.
Capital Regional District
Regional District of Nanaimo
Westerra Equipment
Comox Valley Regional District
More Capacity with Less Burnout
With a bubble of retirements coming and many lean teams in our industry, a single departure or burnout event isn’t just a staffing inconvenience; it could be an operational crisis. This session will examine what structural resilience actually looks like in under-resourced teams — from supporting mental health and preventing burnout to succession planning for the day a key person retires or moves on. And we’re making it real: a CWMA member will share their firsthand experience navigating a key-person departure — and what they wish they’d had in place.
Advica Health
Regional District of Fraser–Fort George
TallSky Consulting
ABC Recycling
More Repair with Less Replacement
Meet and learn from the author of A Better State of Repair, who illustrates ways to reduce waste and minimize our impact on the planet by making these products last longer through repair and maintenance, as well as through modified usage practices. Learn how repair can be celebrated for the independence and satisfaction it brings to repairers, as well as the benefits it brings to the owners of repaired items. * Q&A will be followed by an open discussion on repair, repair cafes, and other repair ideas shared by all attendees.
A Better State of Repair
City of Victoria
For participant updates on solid waste initiatives. Pre-registration is required. A sign-up will be sent to registered delegates and other regular participants. Only for those who work at/for Local Governments and First Nations. No fly-on-the-wall access, sorry.
Three Learnings. Twelve minutes each. Bring something to write on.
Not heading out on a tour? This is where you want to be.
Three of our conference partners take the Main Stage for 12 minutes apiece plus some q&a time — no panels, no company history, no warm-up. Each one has been asked to bring a single specific thing: a problem they solved, a result they can point to, or something you could apply to your needs sooner rather than later. Got questions? Presenters will lead a discussion table following their solution presentation in the networking hall when the block wraps — we’ll point you their way.
Sparx Publishing Group
How We Get What We Want by Giving People What They Already Want
VEMA Deconstruction
Deconstruction Over Demolition
Rehrig Pacific & Openscreen
Nothing Has Changed in Your Driveway: Who Do You Even Call?
More information and registration details will be available in mid-September and will be shared with registered delegates. Additional fees will apply. Limited numbers available for each tour.
Xʷsəyq̓əm Tour, Place of Mud, Walking Tour | 2:30 – 4:00 PM (plus walking to the inner harbour and back. Plan to leave the Delta by 2:10 PM at the latest | Cost: $55
Hartland Landfill Tour | 2:15 – 4:45 PM Bus will meet everyone out front of the Delta and leave at 2:25 sharp. Bring water | Cost: $20
GFL Sites Walking Tour | Touring local GFL sites on foot will ensure you get a little exercise and lots of networking and learning! | 2:30 – 4:30 PM | Cost: $0
More details to follow. An online registration for those not attending the conference but who would like to attend in person will be available. A virtual option will also be offered.
There’s no better way to start doing more with less than doing it together! Join us (included in your full registration) at the welcome reception to catch up with colleagues and spark new connections.
We are honoured to welcome you to this thematic opening session featuring special greetings.
Coast Waste Management Association
Convertus Group / CWMA Chair
Capital Regional District
Minister of Environment and Parks
More Impact with Less Sacrifice
We are so honoured to have Dr. Jiaying Zhao, Professor of Psychology and Sustainability, UBC | Founder & Director, Behavioural Sustainability Lab as our 2026 keynote speaker. Can fighting climate change actually make your life better? Dr. Jiaying Zhao says yes — and her new book with Elizabeth Dunn, Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species, makes the case. JZ designs behavioural solutions that turn intentions into action.In 2023, JZ gave a TED talk on climate strategies rooted in happiness, which was selected as one of the top “TED Talks to be a better you” in 2024.
More Visitors with Less Waste
BC’s tourism economy is a source of enormous pride — and enormous pressure on the communities that host it. Seasonal spikes, remote locations, and visitors unfamiliar with local systems create waste management challenges that don’t show up in the tourism brochure. But some BC communities and organizations are figuring it out.
Destination BC
Vancouver Airport Authority
Surfrider Canada - ReSurf
District of Squamish
Recycle BC
More Local Recycling with Less Obstacles
Every time a contract is written, a tender is scoped, or a load gets dispatched, someone decides where BC’s material goes — and it may not stay local. Meanwhile, we have a gypsum recycler, plastics processors, lumber salvagers, and a growing bench of companies that are innovating to turn our discards back into feedstock. This plenary will help us all understand what’s actually available close to home, what it takes to specify it, and what’s still needed. This great panel will bring an honest conversation about what it will take to grow our markets.
Ecowaste
Reclaim Plastics
New West Gypsum
Urbanjacks - Can-Do! Green Technologies
Ocean Legacy
GRT – Regenerock
More with Less | Decades of Innovation
Our Conference theme isn’t a concept for Emmie Leung — it’s five decades of practice. In 1976, she started a one-woman recycling operation in Vancouver, solving a bin-budget problem with heavy-duty bags. Fifty years later, Emterra has grown into a national leader in innovative waste management. In this marquee fireside-style conversation, Emmie shares the lessons behind five decades of doing more with less.
Emterra
Dillon Consulting
More Solutions with Less Status Quo
Collection has worked roughly the same way for decades. These three companies are each asking whether it has to. This session brings together innovators working on different assumptions baked into how collection is designed, priced, and operated — and what happens when you challenge them. The ideas are new, the evidence is early, and the questions are real. Come ready for an honest conversation about what’s possible.
OptiCollect
Vertocube
E-TRIP
Regional District of Nanaimo
The 1940s and early 1950s practically invented the art of doing “more with less” — so what better way to cap off Conference Day 1 than to build on that very theme?
Grab your saddle shoes, slick back your hair, and get ready to cut a rug at the ultimate throwback dance. We’re turning back the clock to two iconic decades that proved you don’t need a massive budget to have a massive amount of fun.
The Vibe: Ration-Chic Meets Rock ‘n’ Roll
We’re celebrating the golden age of resourcefulness — 1940s swing-club energy meets a high-octane 1950s sock hop. Expect a playlist packed with big band brass, thumping rockabilly basslines, and rock ‘n’ roll classics that will keep your feet moving all night. (Don’t worry, a few modern favourites will sneak their way in too.)
Each year, we are fortunate to include Environment & Climate Change Canada for an update. Details will follow as we get closer to our event.
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Coast Waste Management Association
More Cooperation with Less Contamination
What happens in the recycling room of a 120-unit condo building on a Tuesday night? This session brings together the full chain of custody — from policy to pavement to resident — to examine where multi-unit waste systems succeed, where they break down, and what it will take to close the gap. Featuring an industry panel joined by a resident voice from the front lines of strata waste management, this conversation will surface the friction points we may not see and the changes that can make outsized differences in participation and effectiveness.
Mission Environmental
City of Penticton
Capital Regional District
Recycle BC
First Nations Recycling Initiative
More Safety with Less Complexity
A lithium-ion battery arrives at your transfer station. Is it safe to handle? Does it fall under an EPR program — and if so, which one? Does it weigh more than 5 kg? Does your carrier hold TDG certification, a BC hazardous waste transport licence, and Class 9 authorization? That’s just batteries. Now add pressurized gas cylinders, nitrous oxide, pesticides, and flammable liquids — each with its own regulatory logic, transport requirements, and safety protocols. Front-line staff at organizations across BC are making consequential decisions that need clear guidance, adequate training, and access to licensed contractors. This panel brings together practitioners who have developed practical tools and protocols to close the gaps.
City of Vancouver
Regional District of Nanaimo
Product Care Recycling
Sumas Environmental
Independent Consultant / CWMA Past Chair
We are always grateful that our Epilogue Speaker is an update and Q&A with the BC Ministry of Environment and Parks.
BC Ministry of Environment and Parks
Regional District of Nanaimo / CWMA Vice Chair
Just a few more minutes. We are very grateful for your time.