Terms of Service

1. Agreement to These Terms

By using garbage-collection.org/ (the "Site"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you don't agree, please don't use the Site. These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you and the publisher of garbage-collection.org/ ("we," "us," "our").

Read these Terms alongside our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer.

2. About This Site

garbage-collection.org/ is an independent informational guide that publishes practical, step-by-step guides to municipal garbage, recycling, organics, and yard-waste collection across Canada's 10 provinces and 3 territories. We are not a municipality, provincial environment ministry, Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO), or government agency.

3. Eligibility

The Site is intended for general use by adults conducting lawful research about Canadian municipal waste collection, recycling, and stewardship programs. We do not knowingly direct content to children. Under Quebec’s Law 25, parental consent is generally required before collecting personal information from a child under 14.

4. Permitted Use

You may use the Site for personal, professional, journalistic, academic, and lawful research purposes — figuring out your collection day, planning yard-waste pickup, finding an HHW depot, looking up the new EPR accepted-materials list, planning a move to a new municipality, conducting due-diligence research on Canadian waste-management policy, and similar uses. You may share links to our pages in personal correspondence, on social media, or in professional communications. Journalists, researchers, and consultants may quote short excerpts under fair-dealing principles in the Canadian Copyright Act (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42), with attribution to garbage-collection.org/ and a link back to the source page.

5. Prohibited Use

• Using the Site in violation of any applicable Canadian federal, provincial, territorial, or municipal law
• Illegal dumping, including dumping in another municipality without authorization, dumping outside designated facilities, or placing prohibited materials in the residential waste stream
• Misuse of HHW depot facilities — including bringing IC&I waste to residential depots
• Harassment of municipal workers, collection contractors, PRO staff, or other officials
• Doxing — publishing personal information of officials, employees, or community members to enable harassment
• False claims of producer status or false EPR registration
• Filing false service complaints
• Sending unsolicited commercial electronic messages in violation of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)
• Scraping, harvesting, or systematically extracting content from the Site for resale, republication, or to power a competing service
• Using automated tools to send a high volume of requests that interferes with normal Site operation
• Attempting to gain unauthorized access to the Site, our systems, or any account or data — which may also be a Criminal Code offence under section 342.1
• Introducing malware, viruses, trojans, worms, or any other malicious code

6. Intellectual Property

All content on the Site — text, layout, design, graphics, logos, organization, and code — is owned by us, licensed to us, or used with permission, and is protected by Canadian copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property law (including the Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42 and the Trademarks Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. T-13).

You may view and print pages for personal or professional reference. You may not copy substantial parts of the Site, reproduce our editorial structure, or republish content commercially without our prior written permission, except as permitted under the fair-dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.

Municipality names, provincial agency names, PRO names, and federal program names belong to the relevant body. Our use is for the practical purpose of identifying the body each page covers and does not imply sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation.

7. User-Submitted Content

If you submit content to us — a correction report, feedback, or comment — you confirm that you own it or have the right to share it, that it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, that it is not defamatory, threatening, harassing, obscene, or unlawful under Canadian law, and that it does not contain confidential or restricted information. You give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use the submission for the purpose of operating and improving the Site.

8. Third-Party Links and Services

The Site links extensively to Canadian municipal portals, provincial environment ministries, PROs (Circular Materials, Recycle BC, ARMA, SK Recycles, MMSM, Recyc-Québec, ÉEQ, Divert NS, IWMC, MMSB, Encorp Atlantic), federal stewardship programs (Recycle My Electronics / EPRA, Call2Recycle, Product Care, Health Products Stewardship), and other authoritative sources. We have no control over those sites and cannot guarantee their availability, accuracy, security, or accessibility. A link from us is not an endorsement beyond the specific information we are pointing to.

9. Advertising Disclosure

The Site is funded by display advertising. Advertisements are served by recognized ad networks and labelled as advertising where required. We do not allow advertisers to dictate editorial content; verified municipal and PRO portal links always come first on every page. Where any commercial relationship exists, it is disclosed in context per Competition Bureau guidance on online endorsement disclosure. Full position in our Editorial Policy and Disclaimer.

10. Changes to the Site or These Terms

We may add to, change, or remove parts of the Site at any time. We may also update these Terms from time to time. The “Last reviewed” date at the top reflects the current version. Substantive changes will be flagged on the homepage banner for at least 30 days before they take effect.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

• The Site is provided on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis
• WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE PROVINCIAL CONSUMER PROTECTION LAW
• We make no warranty that the Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free from viruses or other harmful components
• We make no warranties about the accuracy, completeness, currency, reliability, or suitability of any information on the Site for any particular purpose
• We make no representations about the accuracy of any municipality-published collection schedule, accepted-materials list, or other data at any specific moment — those change continually and only the official portal at the moment of your check is authoritative

The full operational disclaimer is on the Disclaimer page.

12. Limitation of Liability

• WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES — INCLUDING MISSED COLLECTION DAYS, REJECTED BINS, BAG-TAG OVERAGES, EPR PRODUCER-COMPLIANCE OUTCOMES, OR ANY OTHER WASTE-MANAGEMENT OUTCOME — ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE SITE
• OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY MATTER RELATING TO THE SITE IS LIMITED TO ONE HUNDRED CANADIAN DOLLARS (CAD $100), EXCEPT WHERE A HIGHER AMOUNT IS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW

13. Provincial Consumer Protection

If you are a consumer in a Canadian province, the consumer-protection law of your province may give you rights that cannot be waived by these Terms. Nothing in these Terms restricts those statutory rights — including under Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, 2002, Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act, BC’s Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act, Alberta’s Consumer Protection Act, or equivalent legislation in other provinces and territories.

14. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any claims, losses, costs, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your breach of these Terms — including any illegal dumping, harassment of municipal or PRO staff, doxing, false service complaints, or any infringement of any third-party right through your use of the Site. This clause does not apply to consumers using the Site for personal, non-commercial purposes except where the loss arises directly from a deliberate or reckless breach.

15. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or restrict your access to the Site without notice if you breach these Terms in a material way, your use causes a security risk or operational problem, we are required to do so by law or court order, or we discontinue all or part of the Site. You may stop using the Site at any time.

16. Dispute Resolution

If a dispute arises out of these Terms or your use of the Site, please contact us first at info@garbage-collection.org with subject line “Dispute resolution” so we can try to resolve the matter informally. We commit to a good-faith response within 30 days.

If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, you and we agree to binding individual arbitration administered by the ADR Institute of Canada (ADRIC) under its Arbitration Rules, except that:

• Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court (such as Ontario’s Small Claims Court) if it qualifies, instead of arbitration
• Either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in court for intellectual-property infringement
• The arbitration will take place in Ontario, or, by agreement of the parties, in the province where you reside
• Class-action limitation: arbitration will be conducted on an individual basis only — no class actions, class arbitrations, or representative proceedings, to the extent enforceable under provincial consumer-protection law

ADR Institute of Canada (ADRIC): adric.ca.

Note for Quebec residents: arbitration clauses in consumer contracts in Quebec are subject to article 11.1 of the Consumer Protection Act (CQLR c. P-40.1), which limits enforceability against Quebec consumers in some circumstances.

17. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute arising under them are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable in it, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. For any matter that is not subject to arbitration under Section 16, the courts of the Province of Ontario have non-exclusive jurisdiction, except that:

• If you are a consumer in another Canadian province or territory, nothing in these Terms deprives you of the protections of mandatory provincial or territorial consumer law in your jurisdiction of residence
• If you are a consumer in Quebec, mandatory provisions of the Quebec Consumer Protection Act and the Civil Code of Québec apply
• If you are a consumer outside Canada, you may have rights to bring proceedings in your jurisdiction of residence under applicable consumer-protection law

18. General Provisions

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer, set out the entire agreement between you and us in relation to the Site.

Severability. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest continues in full force.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations without our written consent. We may transfer ours to a successor in business as part of a corporate restructuring.

Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.

Bilingual interpretation. These Terms are written in English. Where a French translation is provided for the convenience of Quebec residents, in the event of any discrepancy the English version governs except where Quebec law requires otherwise.

19. Contact

For any question about these Terms, email info@garbage-collection.org with the subject line “Terms inquiry.”