Alongside the pipes and treatment plants that supply communities with clean water, another vital component of municipal infrastructure is an affordable waste-management system that keeps urban streets clean and safeguards public health. In Canada, virtually every city and most large towns operate some form of household waste-collection service. In most municipalities, fleets of curbside collection trucks form the operational backbone of the system, gathering bins from individual residences along a fixed weekly or biweekly route. Although curbside pickup is convenient, it cannot accommodate everything; consequently, bulky items and hazardous materials must instead be carried by residents to a designated central depot. These services are administered at either the provincial or municipal level. In Metro Vancouver, for instance, waste collection is coordinated by the regional district, whereas other parts of British Columbia depend on their own local councils.

In densely populated urban districts, the sheer volume of refuse renders simple disposal prohibitively costly and wasteful. For this reason, most large cities now operate diversion programs that deliberately steer reusable materials away from landfill and back into productive use. These programs, usually grouped under the heading of recycling, sort paper, glass, metal, and certain plastics so that the recovered materials can be processed and remanufactured into new consumer goods. City-wide blue-box schemes can be found in major centres such as Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton. Some ambitious programs, like Calgary's, even extend beyond the immediate city core to serve surrounding communities under a shared regional service contract.