The Ontario Waste Management Association (OWMA) and the Environmental Research & Education Foundation (EREF) have completed an agreement to strengthen EREF’s funding of Canadian-based research and scholarships. EREF is currently one of the largest sources of funding in North America for research and scholarships for sustainable materials management.

“The partnership between EREF and the OWMA provides a more effective means to facilitate, evaluate and oversee direct independent scientific research and educational initiatives of specific interest in Canada,” EREF President and CEO Bryan Staley, Ph.D., P.E., said in a statement.

The objective of this collaborative effort is to more effectively fund and facilitate research that addresses the needs of the Canadian waste management sector and fosters relationships with Canadian academic institutions. EREF and the OWMA have established a Memorandum of Understanding, which will provide a mechanism to increase funding to support academic research in Canada on issues that impact the waste management sector, including, but not limited to policy impacts, mitigation of risk and improvement of operations, efficiency and sustainable growth.

EREF’s current activities, which include funding of scholarships to students at Canadian institutions and research efforts that address issues of interest to the Canadian waste industry, set a strong precedent for this collaboration. Additional ties include a member of the EREF Board of Directors that is a faculty member at the University of New Brunswick. Most recently EREF awarded a scholarship to Jillian Treadwill from McGill University, which was a scholarship established by Ontario-based Ice River Springs. EREF and the OWMA will send a letter to Canadian academic institutions that highlights the importance of academic research institutions in facilitating credible research related to waste management and encouraging them to participate in these programs (attached).

“As Canada’s largest waste management association, the OWMA remains committed to enhancing efforts to develop cutting-edge research, data collection and analysis that can assist the waste management and resource recovery sectors with identifying opportunities for improvement and sustainable growth,” said Peter Hargreave, Acting OWMA CEO. “Our partnership with EREF will play a pivotal role in achieving these goals and helping develop solutions to address the challenges facing the sector in Canada through independent scientific research, advanced scholarship and improved data analysis.”