Many everyday items can now be effectively recycled. Ever wonder what happened to your pop can or that milk bottle? Read on. And for more interesting facts and figures on recycling, visit the websites listed below, the sources of some of the information in this section:

Multi-Materials Stewardship Board
Recycling Facts
Waterford Foundation

Alberta Environment's Action on Waste website also provides information about waste management and pollution prevention.

Aluminum

Did you know that a littered aluminum can will take 300 years to break down on its own? By recycling aluminum cans, we save landfill space as well as energy. For example, it takes 95% less energy to produce new aluminum from discarded aluminum cans than from raw materials.

Plastic

Plastics account for 7% of the total weight of a typical landfill. In fact, Canadians take home more than 55 million plastic bags a week! Many plastics are fully recyclable like HDPE and PET. New, interesting products are being made from empty detergent bottles, milk jugs and other plastic refuse. For example, recycled PET is used to make fabric, insulation for sleeping bags and ski jackets; clothing such as T-shirts and uniforms; furniture; luggage; and carpet. And it is used in business equipment and supplies, such as overhead transparencies, covers, briefcases, 3-ring binders, erasable wall planners, chairs, bookmarks, computer bags and business cards. Recycled HDPE is used to make irrigation pipes, garden hoses, and plastic trays for greenhouse plants.18

Steel

Recycling steel from construction projects, vehicles, and mechanical equipment can save a lot of energy and pollution:

• One tonne of recycled steel saves 1.4 tonnes of iron ore and 3.6 barrels of oil.
• It takes four times as much energy to make steel from virgin ore as it does to make it from scrap.
• A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution and mining wastes by 70%.
• Recycled steel cans are used to make new steel cans.

Scrap metal can easily be recycled into a wide range of new products

Dave Mussell, Pembina Institute

Glass

Glass containers can be recycled again and again. However, each year in Canada, six million tonnes of glass are thrown away. A littered glass bottle will take a whopping one million years to break down! And for every tonne of new glass that needs to be produced, 12.6 kg of air pollution are created; recycling glass reduces that pollution by 14-20%. To put it into perspective, one recycled glass bottle saves enough energy to power a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.

Paper and Cardboard

Recycling one tonne of newspaper saves: 19 trees, 3 cubic metres of landfill, 4000 kilowatt hours of energy, 29,000 litres of water and 30 kg of air pollution effluent. Recycled newsprint can be made into new newspaper, kitty litter, shingles for houses, absorbent for oil spills, and insulation. Products made from recycled cardboard use 25% of the energy and create half as much pollution as making them from new materials.

Electronic Waste

As newer and more advanced computers, phones and entertainment equipment keep arriving on the market, older models begin to pile up in landfills. More than 140,000 tonnes of computer equipment, phones, televisions, stereos, and small home appliances accumulate in Canadian landfills each year. That's equivalent to the weight of about 28,000 adult African elephants!

The amount of electronic waste is becoming a growing problem for municipalities

Green Planet Communications

All of this electronic waste does more than just take up land and space – it poses a risk to human health and the environment. Lead, cadmium, mercury and other heavy metals found in electronic equipment need to be properly managed to avoid polluting land and waterways.

Landfilling electronic waste is also a lost opportunity because these products normally contain recyclable aluminum, ferrous metals and copper. In 1999, it is estimated that discarded personal computers alone contained 4,400 tonnes of ferrous metal, 3,050 tonnes of aluminum and 1,500 tonnes of copper. In 2004, Alberta Environment estimated that more than 190,000 televisions and 90,000 desktop computers will be discarded from Alberta households.19

Solutions to E-waste20

Several major manufacturers have begun practising the concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR) to divert electronic waste from the landfills and make sure it's recycled. EPR places the responsibility on the producers to properly manage their products after consumers are through with them. Extended producer responsibility has the effect of stimulating producers to design products that last longer, and are less hazardous and more recyclable. You can soon expect to pay environmental levies on electronic products like TVs and personal computers to help finance this program.

Did you know? GEKO in Alberta

Edmonton is now constructing a new electronics recycling facility to meet the growing demand for safe disposal of electronic and electrical waste. This $30-million facility will be built and operated by GEKO Recycling Technologies Inc., which is a Canadian subsidiary of a larger German company. The facility will process computers, small appliances, electric motors, small engines and other products including commercial and industrial electronic equipment. The metals and plastics recovered from the recycling process will be marketed locally and abroad.

Source: City of Edmonton fact sheet, 2003

 

Since October 2004, all televisions, computers and related equipment previously going into Alberta's landfills are being collected, reused, recycled and turned into new products and economic opportunities. In the initial phase of the program, televisions, computer monitors, CPUs, laptops, electronic notebooks and printers would be accepted for recycling. An environmental fee, ranging from $5 to $45 (depending on the item), is placed on each product included in the program.

Refurbishing programs also help to divert e-waste from landfill. The Computers for Schools program reconditions donated equipment and distributes them free of charge to schools and libraries across Canada. Since its inception, CFS has provided more than 500,000 computers to schools and public libraries in all provinces and territories. CFS now delivers over 80,000 additional computers each year.

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18. Source: Environment and Plastics Industry Council, Fact Sheet, 1997.
19. Source: http://www3.gov.ab.ca/env/waste/ewaste/index.html
20. Source: Mounting Concerns over Electronic Waste, EnviroZine, Environment Canada http://www.ec.gc.ca/EnviroZine/english/issues/33/feature1_e.cfm