OFNTSC’s Regional Solid Waste Specialist is a member of the Joint Table on First Nations Waste Management, a group made up of Indigenous Technical Organizations and federal agencies from various regions of Canada. The Joint Table was established in December 2024 to develop practical, community-informed, and culturally grounded solutions to the longstanding and complex issues surrounding waste management on First Nations reserve lands.
The Preliminary Findings reflects the Joint Table’s collective work to date, including insights from in-person meetings, site visits, virtual sessions, and direct presentations.
The Preliminary Findings of the Joint Table on First Nations Waste Management captures both persistent and emerging issues, structures across five (5) key areas:
1. Funding and Sustainability: The need to transition from fragmented, project-based funding to stable, core funding that recognized waste management as a fundamental public service
2. Capacity Building: The importance of national standards, training, and toolkits that support local waste coordinators and technical teams
3. Regulatory modernization: A focus on replacing outdated regulations, exploring the Canadian Environmental Protection Acts potential for enforcement, and piloting co-developed permitting models
4. Prevention and Awareness: The role of culturally relevant education and compliance-based strategies that empower community ownership and environmental stewardship
5. Enforcement Models: The call for tiered, community-driven enforcement mechanisms that reflect Indigenous governance and restorative justice values.
Looking ahead, the Preliminary Findings of the Joint Table on First Nations Waste Management also outlines the next steps in the Joint Table’s process: engaging in regional validation, and developing a final report with identified options to address long-standing issues, and exploring pilot projects to test scalable, community-led models.
To learn more, please contact Heidi Manitowabi, Regional Solid Waste Specialist at solidwaste@ofntsc.org.
To contribute to the Joint Table findings, please complete the First Nation Solid Waste Baseline Survey: