Beare Hill Park

The view from Beare Road Landfill looking west over Scarborough

The Beare Road Landfill was a landfill that operated near Toronto until 1983.

Metro Toronto opened the Beare Road Landfill Site in 1967 with the approval of Scarborough Council. The 80.5-hectare site, originally with a capacity of 3.3 million tonnes, received solid waste through 1988. Metro and Scarborough agreed to expand the Beare Landfill's capacity by 635,000 tonnes in 1971 and 5.4 million tonnes in 1974.

Following closure of the landfill in 1983, the City continued to manage the site to control potential impacts. To limit emissions and control odours, the surface of the site was equipped with an array of passive candlestick gas flares. The City selected developed a landfill gas to electricity project at the Beare Road site. Construction of the LFG collection field and power plant proceeded and generation of electricity from LFG began in January 1996.

Attempts at a ski resort

Scarborough's desire was first expressed in 1971, to improve the site for recreational purposes. Metro would design the facility and manage disbursements from the trust account; Scarborough would lease the property as of 1978, undertake construction, and assume any excess costs.

In 1982, Scarborough cancelled this agreement. Metro undertook preliminary work on the ski facility into the early 1990s before abandoning the project. As plans emerged for the Rouge Park, Metro officials acknowledged that a ski facility at Beare Road would likely be rejected by the Province, given the project's incompatibility with other land uses in and around the park and the range of possible environmental impacts.