Data quality, concepts and methodology: Overall approach: data sources and methodology

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General methodology

This report presents the physical quantities, types and sources of waste and recyclable materials as well as financial and employment characteristics of the waste management industry. These estimates are based on the integration of two waste surveys conducted by Statistics Canada on a biennial basis: the Waste Management Industry Survey: Business Sector and the Waste Management Industry Survey: Government Sector. Essentially the same questions were asked for the waste and recyclable quantities and types sections of both surveys, however the financial sections differed somewhat.

To arrive at physical totals for the disposal and recycling sections, data from the two surveys were combined and duplicate entries were removed. These duplicates occur because operating arrangements of disposal and recycling activities can vary. Sites may be owned and operated by the same entity, but some sites may be owned by a government body and operated by a private firm. Since in some cases an owner of a facility may not have necessarily been the operator and the survey may have been completed by both the owner and the operator, care was taken to ensure that the information from each facility was only counted once. In these cases the information reported by the owner of the facility was typically used. However, in cases where there was a large difference in the information reported by the two respondents, further research was done to determine the reason for the discrepancy, and the appropriate response was used.

Not all of the population may have access to, or use, formal disposal or recycling facilities. In rural areas especially, arrangements can be made with a landowner to use property for the purpose of small-scale disposal sites ("dumps"). For this reason and others, a survey coverage population was developed using information provided by survey respondents as well as from other sources about the municipalities that were served by disposal and recycling facilities. Total populations were calculated for these municipalities using Statistics Canada data. ¹  The difference between the total population and the covered population was calculated. A provincial per capita disposal figure was applied to this undercovered population, and this total was added to the survey total to arrive at an adjusted disposal figure. The undercovered portion of the population is small and has been decreasing with each iteration of the survey.

It is assumed that all Canadians produce waste and that this waste must be disposed of in some manner, thus requiring an adjusted disposal figure. However, the same adjustment was not made to the recycling figures. Unlike waste, which can be disposed of in a hole at the back of someone's property, material to be recycled must be prepared and processed. While the smallest recycling depots may not be surveyed because they fall below the municipal population or business size thresholds for selection, the major material recovery facilities where this material is processed are covered by the survey. Therefore, most recycled material that falls within the conceptual parameters of this survey is captured and accounted for in the final estimate.

Reference period

The Waste Management Industry Surveys are biennial surveys. The information contained in this report reflects the total revenues, total operating and capital expenditures, total employment and waste quantities covering the financial year ending between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009.

Coverage

Business sector

The 2008 Waste Management Industry Survey: Business Sector asked firms to report information on their waste management activities for each of their provincial and territorial operations. Businesses were selected based on the size of their workforce as well as the level of their total revenues. The threshold (based on revenue and employment levels) that was used to include or exclude a particular business from the survey mailout depended on the province or territory in which they operated. For example, surveyed businesses from Newfoundland and Labrador had a lower revenue and employment cut-off than those from Ontario.

The survey frame for the 2008 business survey was based on the 2006 survey supplemented and updated with information from the Statistics Canada Business Register (BR) and industry directories. Firms selected from the BR are a subset of the Waste Management and Remediation Services NAICS 562 (See text box "The classification of waste management services").The combined list was cross-checked with other industry directories to avoid double-surveying of units.

For those firms not included in the survey because of their small size, administrative data on total operating revenues and total employment obtained from Tax Data Division and Statistics Canada's Business Register were used to estimate their contribution to the industry.

Government sector

Local governments and other public waste management bodies were selected for the Waste Management Industry Survey: Government Sector on the basis of a municipal population threshold that varied by province and whether or not a disposal, recycling and/or composting facility operated within their jurisdiction.

The mailing list for the 2008 survey was based on past survey information and supplemented by information obtained from provincial sources.

Municipalities as well as regional waste management service boards in the province of Quebec were added to the survey frame for the 2008 survey. Estimates for financial and employment data for the local government sector as well as disposal data were taken from these surveys. In the past, municipalities in this province have been excluded from the survey as the information was obtained from provincial sources.

Variables measured

For the reference year 2008, respondents were asked to report the following information:

1. specific types of waste management activities conducted by the respondent;
2. total quantities of non-hazardous and hazardous waste managed in disposal facilities, recycled, composted, exported, and imported;
3. sources of waste and recyclable and compostable material;
4. total revenues realized from the sale of waste management services;
5. total operating and capital expenditures; and
6. total employment.

Data collection and processing

Data collection for both surveys took place during the spring, summer, and fall of 2009. Survey questionnaires were mailed to a total of 1,422 businesses and local governments. The responses were returned by mail. The questionnaires were addressed to a contact person who was either responsible for, or had knowledge of, the waste management operations of the survey unit.

For businesses that had operations in more than one province, a separate questionnaire was completed for each province in which the waste management business operated. For example, a business with operations in three provinces completed three questionnaires, each one describing the activities within a province. This was not a concern for the government sector.

Follow-ups by fax and/or telephone were carried out after the return due date to remind respondents to return their questionnaires.

Questionnaires were edited in two steps. First, validity edits were applied to ensure that responses to particular questions fell within a limited range of possible values. This type of editing was applied mostly to the questions on quantities but was also used to identify unusual values in the financial sections. A second step, consistency edits, was then undertaken. These identified occasions where the responses in one section of the questionnaire were logically inconsistent with those given in other sections.

Additional follow-up was carried out to collect missing data and to correct inconsistencies. The survey collection period was closed by early November 2009.

Government sector waste management

Many local governments use the services of private sector waste management firms. It was essential that both the questionnaire structure and particular wording enabled respondents to distinguish between services they provided with their own employees and those which they contracted out. In the processing phase it frequently became necessary to contact respondents to clarify the nature of these relationships.

In addition, groups of municipalities work together to provide waste management services for their residents. In many areas, different tiers of local governments exist and governments in each tier may be involved in aspects of waste service delivery. Many alternative forms of service delivery were identified, for example:

1. A regional government might serve an area within which there are a number of local municipalities.
2. The upper tier government might provide all of the waste services.
3. Only the lower tier municipalities might provide services.
4. Both tiers might provide different services (for example, one operates a disposal facility; the other tier provides waste collection services).
5. Both tiers could be providing the same services to different parts of the region (a lower tier might run a disposal facility for just their municipality with the regional government running a disposal facility for the remainder of the region).
6. Municipalities in one or both tiers could act co-operatively through a separate government agency such as a regional waste commission that both collects waste and runs the disposal facility.
7. None of the governments in an area could be doing any waste management, leaving provision of waste services strictly to private sector firms.
8. A combination of the above scenarios.

Examples of each of these situations exist in Canada and both the survey vehicle and processing system had to be able to deal with these possibilities.

Extensive respondent follow-up was required in some cases. Returns for specific geographic areas were frequently processed together in order to build a clear picture of the service delivery area and to prevent either double counting or inadvertently missing pieces of information.

Evaluation of frame coverage

The estimates presented in this report refer only to waste and recyclable materials that have entered the managed waste stream; in other words, waste or recyclables that have been collected, processed or disposed of by a private waste management firm or local government organization. Therefore, waste or recyclables that are directly managed by the generator are not covered.

Figure 1: Waste management industry survey coverage

For example, waste created by a pulp and paper mill may be managed by the company on site or in another company-run facility without the assistance of separate service providers. As a result, these quantities would not be counted by either survey. Also, waste generators may manage some waste materials themselves. Many households and businesses have on-site composters that handle at least a portion of home and garden organic waste. While the amounts of compostable materials handled through central composting programs are included in the report, the on-site component is not. In addition, any unconventional methods of waste disposal, such as illegal dumping are not included in the survey coverage. (The above points are illustrated in Figure 1 ).

In-scope establishments

A total of 1,093 fully completed and partially completed in-scope questionnaires were returned for the 2008 survey cycle; 411 for the business sector and 682 for the government sector. For those questionnaires that were not returned, 155 were considered to be in-scope resulting in a combined total of 1,248 in-scope respondents for the two surveys.

Closures, mergers and acquisitions, out-of-scope establishments

Since the 2006 survey, some structural changes have occurred in the waste management industry. In the business sector, of the establishments surveyed, 7 went out of business and 3 mergers took place. Another 21 businesses that had provided waste management services in 2006 did not provide these services in 2008 and were determined to be out-of-scope for the purpose of this survey. Among the local governments surveyed, 11 municipalities amalgamated, becoming either a part of an existing municipality or forming a new municipality and another 2 were found to be out-of scope for the 2008 cycle.

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