Accessibility Statement

1. Our Commitment

Information about Canadian municipal waste collection should be accessible to every Canadian — including those who use screen readers, voice-control software, magnification tools, captioning, and other assistive technologies. We design and review garbage-collection.org/ with that audience in mind, and we treat accessibility issues as a high-priority editorial concern.

2. The Standard We Apply

We aim to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA, published by the W3C — the same baseline that the Government of Canada applies to its own digital content under the federal Accessibility Standard for Web Content, and that the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Information and Communications Standards reference for organizations with 50 or more employees in Ontario.

3. Canadian Legal Framework We Work Within

Accessible Canada: accessible.canada.ca. AODA: ontario.ca/page/accessibility-laws.

4. What’s Already in Place

5. Assistive Technology Compatibility

The site is tested with the following combinations and is expected to work with current versions of each:

Voice-input testing covers Dragon (Windows) and Voice Control (macOS/iOS).

6. Supported Browsers

• Google Chrome — current and previous major version
• Microsoft Edge — current and previous major version
• Mozilla Firefox — current and previous major version
• Apple Safari — current macOS and iOS releases
• Mobile browsers — current Chrome (Android) and Safari (iOS)

Older browsers may not render the site as intended.

7. Keyboard Navigation

8. Known Limitations

• Third-party Canadian municipal portals. When you click through to a municipality’s waste portal, that site’s accessibility is the municipality’s responsibility — not ours. Some Canadian municipal portals are not fully tagged for screen readers, and some use legacy address-lookup tools that work poorly with assistive technology.
• PRO portals. The PROs (Circular Materials, Recycle BC, ARMA, SK Recycles, MMSM, Recyc-Québec, ÉEQ) run their own community-specific pages; we cannot fix accessibility issues inside those platforms.
• Government PDFs. Many provincial EPR designation regulations, federal frameworks, and stewardship-program documents we link to are PDFs published by federal or provincial agencies and may have accessibility limitations the agency hasn’t addressed.
• French-language coverage. Most of our content is currently in English; we are working to expand French-language coverage to better serve Quebec residents and bilingual New Brunswick communities.
• Older archived content. Our oldest pages (predating the current standard) are being reviewed and updated on a rolling basis.

9. Alternative Formats

If you need information from the site in an alternative format — large print, plain-text, audio description, or another reasonable adaptation — email info@garbage-collection.org with the subject line “Accessibility — alternative format” and the page URL. We aim to respond within five business days.

10. How We Test

• Automated checks (axe-core, WAVE, Lighthouse) on every page before publication
• Manual keyboard-only walkthrough of major templates after each design update
• Screen-reader spot-checks across the assistive-technology combinations listed above
• Colour-contrast checks on every new design palette before it ships
• Annual full-site accessibility review

11. Reporting an Accessibility Issue

If something on the site doesn’t work for you with a screen reader, keyboard, magnifier, voice-control software, captioning, or any other assistive technology, please email info@garbage-collection.org with the subject line “Accessibility issue.” Include:

• The page URL where you encountered the issue
• What you were trying to do
• What happened (and what you expected to happen)
• Your browser, operating system, and assistive technology (where you can share that)

Accessibility issues are priority. We aim to respond within one to three business days.

12. Escalation Routes

13. Contact

Email info@garbage-collection.org with the subject line “Accessibility issue.” For accessibility on a third-party Canadian municipality or PRO site, contact that organization directly — its accessibility statement is typically linked from its footer.