Every school aged child in Canada has been exposed to the phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle", and this phrase is garnering more and more recognition around the world. The question is, do we, the adults who invented the phrase, truly understand what it means to them, and are we prepared to work on making it more than just a turn of phrase. Are we ready to work cooperatively to make the changes required and turn these words into practical everyday sustainble actions?
Residential multi-material collection programs encourage
householders to place their recyclable material in blue boxes, bags or carts
for curbside pick-up. Its success with householders is due in part to its
visibility and to its convenience. It has been embraced with great enthusiasm
by many Canadians, especially our children, and is now being looked at by
other nations as a highly significant answer to the waste reduction question:
"What do we do with all this material?" And Canada is looked at
by many other countries as being a leader in this field. It's time to make
haste and get rid of more "waste". More than ever we need to get
everyone to work together to accomplish the transformation from waste management
to closing the loop on remanufacturing.
In Nova Scotia, diversion rates increased from 7% in 1995 to 26.3% in 1996. The number of municipalities with recycling programs nearly doubled between 1996 and 1997 from 46% to 85% respectively.
The start-up of two centralized composting facilities over the past three years have allowed for 5300 tonnes of organics to be diverted from landfill.
In Ontario, the report in 1996 was actually rather surprising.
Centralized composting tonnage, mainly leaf and yard waste - up 41% since 1994.
Municipally collected industrial, commerical and institutional recyclables - increased by 20% since 1994.
Municipalities diverted over 1 million tonnes of material from disposal - a 16% increase over 1994.
Residential recycling tonnage (blue box and blue bag) is up 12% since 1994, accounting for more than half of the 1 million tonnes diverted.
In Manitoba, according to the Government's Pollution Prevention Branch, the province's residential recycling tonnage increased 72% between 1995 and 1996. This is largely due to the implementation of both curbside and depot collection in the city of Winnipeg.
In total, 95% of the province's residents are now served by recycling programs.
In British Columbia, their recycling rate increased 25.7% from 1990 to 1995.
In the same time period the province reduced its waste by 32%.
This is not to say that there are not challenges ahead. Despite the good news these facts represent, many stakeholders are discontent with the current status. In this issue of Glass Works we are going to take a positive look, not at our past accomplishments, but how to move a multi-material recycling system forward to make the world work tomorrow by partnering today.
Last issue Glass Works shared with you our belief that a truly sustainable recycling system is only going to be possible when all the stakeholders work together. We shared an outline for the roles and responsibilities that were developed by the Industry Caucus for the National Packaging Stewardship Model.
Glass Works asked readers to think about their position within the system and what they could do to make the system work. We talked to people in each stakeholder group and here's what we found out.
So in this issue, we are going to share with you internationally recognized tools for initiating change.
Glass Works is a publication of Consumers Glass
Copyright © 1997 Glass Works