Waste Reduction Week's origins can be traced back to the mid 1980s, when a number of recycling councils and environmental organizations began holding provinicial Recycling and Waste Reduction Weeks. In 2001, these organizations came together and decided to pool their resources and expand their efforts into a national event called Waste Reduction Week in Canada (WRW).

Since 2001, Waste Reduction Week in Canada has been organized by a coalition of non-government, not-for-profit environment groups and governments from each of the 13 participating provincial and territorial jurisdictions across Canada.

WRW is currently held the third week of October each year.

The success of the WRW in Canada program continues to grow with the number of participants in all three targeted audiences – schools, local governments and small to medium sized businesses – more than doubling in the last six years alone.

In 2008, Waste Reduction Week embarked on a brave new branding exercise to increase its national profile and reach more Canadians with its waste reduction message. Through an exciting partnership with Sesame Street, that saw Oscar the Grouch become the program's official spokes-Muppet, and an extensive media campaign Waste Reduction Week ran its most successful campaign to date garnering over 65 million media impressions and appearances on network News as well as CTV's Etalk and CBC's The Hour.