Quick Facts

Presently, 80% of municipal and industrial solid waste in Canada is disposed of by landfilling processes, with the remainder disposed through recycling, resource recovery and incineration (Government of Canada)

Landfills sites account for about 38% of Canada's total methane emission (Environment Canada)

About 1/3 of our waste is paper and paperboard. Another third is yard and kitchen waste. The rest is divided among glass, metals, plastics, textiles, wood and other materials (Environment Canada)

Municipal Solid Waste Categories and Diversion

What used to be in the waste stream?

Source: The analysis of domestic waste. Institute of Wastes Management, 1982.

Vegetable14%

Paper14%Textiles

2%Glass

3%

Metals4%

Misc6%

Dust & Ashes57%

Composition of Dustbin Contents in 1935

Sources of Waste Materials generated in Canada

Residential33%

Industrial, Com-mercial & Institu-

tional40%

Construction & Demolition

27%

Source: Stats Canada

Composition of Residential Waste

Paper25%

Food & Yard Waste35%

Glass3%

Metal6%

Plastic7%

Other Mixed25%

• Meat & fish waste

• Diapers• HHW

• Textiles• Dust

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Composition of municipal solid waste in Canada

MSW Waste Composition

Municipal solid waste composition in Alberta (1994)Source: Alberta Environment, SOER for Alberta

Recyclable

today

Recyclable and compostable materials in municipal solid waste

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

Recover

Landfill

3Rs

Residuals Management

Disposal Options

Waste Management Hierarchy

70% of landfilled waste could be either reused or recycled.

• 1 litre of oil can contaminate a million litres of ground water.

• In North America, approximately 20% of our paper, plastic, glass and metal goods are currently made from recycled material.

Experts believe that a 50% rate could be easily achieved.Recycling all of your home's waste newsprint,

cardboard, glass and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 400 kg. a year (Earth Care)

Diverting MSW – The Five R’s

Source reduction, also called waste prevention or avoidance, means producing and consuming less. In addition to reducing our overall

consumption by buying less, source reduction can be achieved by purchasing durable, repairable, upgradable, long-lasting goods, as well as seeking products and packaging that represent a reduction in materials and toxicity.

3Rs Hierarchy - Reduce

Reusing involves the use of a product more than once for the same purpose without altering its form.Refurbishing is not considered to alter

a product’s form.Lower order reuse (i.e downcycling)

utilizes a product for a different purpose.

3Rs Hierarchy - Reuse

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Reuse is main strategy for individuals to reduce waste• Donate used items to charity

• Reuse boxes, paper, plastic, wrapping paper, etc

• Buy groceries in bulk

• Decline bags at stores and bring cloth bags shopping

• Bring your own cup to coffee shops

• Buy rechargeable batteries

• Select goods with less packaging

• Compost kitchen and yard wastes

• Rent or borrow items instead of buying them

• TBS recovers more refillable and non-refillable bottles than is sells (it also collects refillable bottles that LCBO sells) – for 107% recovery. (1.5 billion units!)

• 91% recovery of aluminum cans• 99% recovery of their kegs• 95% old cardboard/boxboard

The Beer Store – A Case Study in Efficient Reuse

Performance

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Composting recovers organic waste

• Composting = the conversion of organic waste into mulch or humus through natural biological processes of decomposition

• There are now more than 350 centralized composting programs in Canada

• 28% of the Canadian solid waste stream is made up of materials that can easily be composted

Biodegradable materials

Biodegradable packaging materials are typically made from agricultural waste by-products, such as grain husks.

‘Ecocradle’ is a styrofoam substitute corner protector that is grown rather than manufactured. Fungi are grown in a waste grain mixture and give the material its unique structure.

Image from http://uo-gpdn.ning.com

Processing materials / products at the end of their useful lives into materials for subsequent use in the production of new goods. Closed-Loop Recycling (preferred) is when materials

are reprocessed and manufactured into the same or similar products, which in turn will re-enter the recycling loop upon the end of their useful lives.

Open-Loop Recycling (i.e. downcycling) is when the waste product is reprocessed into a different product that cannot readily re-enter the recycling loop.

Composting is considered a form of recycling.

3Rs Hierarchy - Recycle

EPA / Environment Canada studiesReducing waste (eliminating it at the source)

has the most dramatic impact on reducing greenhouse gases

Recycling is also an effective way of reducing GHGsless energy is required to manufacture

materials from recycled materials than from virgin material

fewer gases are emitted compared with landfilling or incinerating those materials

Environmental Impacts

Recycling consists of three steps

Glass

Recycling Glass Quick Facts

Recycling one ton of glass saves about 40 litres of fuel oil (Recycling Council of Ontario)

Recycling glass saves 33% of the energy required to manufacture it from virgin sources

Recycling a glass jar saves enough energy to light a bulb for four hours.

• Making glass from recycled materials cuts related air pollution 20% and water pollution 50%.

How is glass recycled?

Glass is sorted by colorCrushed/Turned into culletCullet is melted or mixed with raw materialsCullet has lower liquid temp than raw silicaAlso Less additives are needed

THE VIDEOhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf8bWDPDSi8

Glass Life Cycle AnalysisUsing recycled glass to make jars and bottles saves

315kg of CO2 per ton

How much glass is recycled?

In 2007 the US generated 11,470,000 tons of glass containers and packaging

28.1% or 3,220,000 tons was recycled, preventing the emission of 1,014,300,000 kg of CO2

However, in 2006 cars produced about 1280 times more!

Regardless…

Recycled glass still very useful. It can be found in:

-Glasphalt-Fiberglass-Bottles and Containers-Sand/abrasives-Tiles/Frames/Windows

Paper and cardboard are derived from trees

The extent to which the forests are properly managed affects the environmental sustainability of paper as a packaging material.

Paper and Cardboard

• one edition of the Sunday New York Times consumes about 75,000 trees.

Recycling Paper Quick FactsOne pound of newspaper can be recycled to make

6 cereal boxes, 6 egg cartons or 2,000 sheets of writing paper (Recycling Council of Ontario)

Recycling one tonne of newspaper saves 19 trees, 3 cubic metres of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatt hours of energy, 29,000 litres of water and 30 kgs of air pollution (Recycling Council of Ontario)

25% of the energy used to manufacture cardboard is saved when the cardboard is recycled (The Eco-Efficiency Centre)

Manufacturing recycled paper produces 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution, as well as using 58% less water and 64% less energy than making paper from virgin wood pulp.

Paper and cardboard cannot be recycled indefinitely. When paper is recycled the fibres get shorter. New material with longer fibre length must be added

to recycled material to make office-quality paper.

Paper and cardboard contaminated with food residue – like pizza boxes – cannot by recycled (although they can still be composted!)

First, the waste paper must be collected.One of the most expensive parts of recycling is the

collection, sorting, and transportation of waste paper.

How Paper is Recycled

The next step is repulping.The bales of sorted waste paper are soaked in large

vats, where they disintegrate into fibers.Chemicals are added so that, when ink particles start to

separate from the paper, they can't reattach themselves to the pulp.

To remove the ink, the pulp is fed into a deinking system. fine screens remove extraneous material (known as "trash"),

coatings and additives, and extremely small contaminants such as fillers and loose ink particles.

screened pulp is sent through several cleaning stages, where heat, chemicals, and mechanical action are used to loosen ink particles.

Finally, the pulp mixture enters a flotation device, where calcium soap is added which create air bubbles in the mixture which float the remaining ink to the surface, where it is skimmed away.

The deinked pulp is now sent to the stock preparation area, where it is treated and loaded into the headbox of a paper machine

From this point, the pulp is treated just the same as if it had been freshly made from wood chips rather than recycled.

At the end of the recycling process, a new paper product has been produced from material that might otherwise have been dumped in a landfill.

How Paper is Recycled Video

FSC Certified Forest Manufacturing FSC Certified Paper

What is FSC-certified paper?• FSC-certified papers are tracked from forest to

final product.

• The FSC label guarantees that the paper has come from a responsibly managed forest, verified recycled source, or other controlled forest friendly sources.