1. Municipal Solid Waste Categories and Diversion
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)

2. What used to be in the waste stream?
Historic waste composition information shows how waste stream has changed.
Source: The analysis of domestic waste. Institute of Wastes Management, 1982.

3. Sources of Waste Materials generated in Canada
Shows breakdown of waste from different sectors.
Source: Stats Canada

4. Composition of Residential Waste
Meat & fish waste
Diapers
HHW
Textiles
Dust
Breakdown of residential waste – note by weight. Materials like plastic that are light actually take up more space.

5. Composition of municipal solid waste in Canada

6. MSW Waste Composition Recyclable today
Bringing together previous slides into overall Municipal Solid Waste, this is the overall breakdown. Highlight paper and organics as largest constituents.
Municipal solid waste composition in Alberta (1994) Source: Alberta Environment, SOER for Alberta

7. Recyclable and compostable materials in municipal solid waste

8. Waste Management Hierarchy
Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
Recover
Landfill
3Rs
Residuals Management Disposal Options

9. Diverting MSW – The Five R’s
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)

10. 3Rs Hierarchy - Reduce
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 definitions, as established by RCA. Important to note it is a hierarchy – important to prioritize in this order.

11. 3Rs Hierarchy - Reuse
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 definitions, as established by RCA. Important to note it is a hierarchy – important to prioritize in this order.

12. 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

13. The Beer Store – A Case Study in Efficient Reuse Performance
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

14. 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

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

16. 3Rs Hierarchy - Recycle
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 definitions, as established by RCA. Important to note it is a hierarchy – important to prioritize in this order.

17. Environmental Impacts
EPA / Environment Canada studies
Reducing waste (eliminating it at the source) has the most dramatic impact on reducing greenhouse gases
Recycling is also an effective way of reducing GHGs
less energy is required to manufacture materials from recycled materials than from virgin material
fewer gases are emitted compared with landfilling or incinerating those materials

18. Recycling consists of three steps

19. Glass

20. 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%.

21. How is glass recycled? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf8bWDPDSi8
Glass is sorted by color
Crushed/Turned into cullet
Cullet is melted or mixed with raw materials
Cullet has lower liquid temp than raw silica
Also Less additives are needed
THE VIDEO

22. Glass Life Cycle Analysis
Using recycled glass to make jars and bottles saves 315kg of CO2 per ton

23. 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 times more!

24. Regardless… Recycled glass still very useful. It can be found in:
-Glasphalt
-Fiberglass
-Bottles and Containers
-Sand/abrasives
-Tiles/Frames/Windows

25. Paper and Cardboard 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.
one edition of the Sunday New York Times consumes about 75,000 trees.

26. Recycling Paper Quick Facts
One 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.

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

28. How Paper is Recycled First, the waste paper must be collected.
One of the most expensive parts of recycling is the collection, sorting, and transportation of waste paper.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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

32. 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.
FSC Certified Forest
Manufacturing
FSC Certified Paper
Fibre in an FSC-certified paper is tracked through the Chain of Custody certification system.
Chain of Custody certification applies to all members in the supply chain for an FSC-certified paper product. FSC-certified fibre is tracked through the entire supply chain - from forest, to pulp mill, to manufacturer, to final paper product. This guarantees that when a paper product carries the FSC label, it has come from a responsibly managed forest and can be traced back to the FSC-certified forest from which it came.