Losing Waste

By Carolyn Sloan

The Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

How many plastic bottles need to be recycled to save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours?

How about the number of recycled aluminum cans to run a television for three hours?

The tonnage of recycled paper required to save 17 trees?

In each case, the answer is the same: One. But then in the business of recycling, one can be a pretty big number.

Meet Andrea Gibson-Garrett. She’s a residential coordinator with Valley Waste Resource Management, and it’s her job to deal with issues that arise with residential waste, from sorting to collection.

“Overall, people in the Valley are doing a great job with recycling and composting,” she says. “It’s only natural that people don’t know where everything goes, because if you think about it, there’s hundreds of thousands of things people can throw away in a year.”

Her job gets a little tricky when it comes to apartment buildings, where tenants lump their waste together. By law, the landlord is responsible for providing the tenants with the tools and storage they need to sort and store their waste properly.

“There are a lot of challenges with apartments because the greencarts are shared and the storage areas are shared,” Andrea explains.

“It’s more anonymous.”

Nonetheless, each tenant is still responsible for their own waste and can suffer consequences if their waste is not sorted properly. In the past, there have been cases where tenants have been charged, but only after staff at Valley Waste have tried to work with them first.

“We’d like to try to turn them around,” says Andrea. “We’ve seen a huge difference over the years. Just over the past eight years, you can see the culture of change.”

If necessary, staff will sort through garbage bags themselves, though with the new clear bag program taking effect April 1, it will be much easier to see at a glance which residences are not sorting properly.

“Now with the clear bags,” says Andrea, “it will be very easy for the drivers to notice if there is a problem.”

RECYCLING = $$$

Bonnie Clemens is the industrial, commercial, institutional coordinator for Valley Waste. While Andrea works with residents, it is her job to help businesses set up recycling and composting programs that are cost effective and efficient at the same time.

“I show them ways to save money by recycling,” says Bonnie. “It’s achievable and it is getting better.”

She notes that when it comes to doing business, recycling makes good economic sense. In the first place, tipping fees for recycled materials are cheaper than they are for garbage. Bonnie recently helped the local community college save $3000 a year, and divert half of their waste through improved recycling. When working with commercial clients, it’s easier, she says, if an employee is assigned to sort the waste.

“In a place like a big box store, you would have more of a challenge than a mom and dad business,” Bonnie explains. “Any restaurant that can clear the tables, that’s great, because then your employees can sort it.”

Like Andrea, she empathizes with some of the confusion people experience when it comes to sorting waste.

“What a beauty salon has and what a mechanical shop has [for waste], we can’t put it all in our guide,” she explains.

As such, Bonnie notes that there is a toll-free hotline for people to call if they have any sorting questions or problems they need help with. It’s about educating, not guilting people into recycling. After all, everyone makes mistakes, she says, but there are big pay-offs for residents and businesses, as for the planet as a whole, in keeping recyclables and compostables out of the landfill.

ORGANICS AND GREENHOUSE GASES

First and foremost, there is the environmental benefit, and here, the management of organic waste plays a big role. According to the staff at Valley Waste, landfill sites account for approximately 38 per cent of Canada’s methane emissions, a contributor to greenhouse gases. And the methane that’s now bubbling out of second-generation landfills? It’s from the biodegradable waste that has been decomposing in an environment where there is very little oxygen.

“Having food in the landfill,” says communication coordinator Andrew Garrett, “it doesn’t decompose the same way as in the compost.”

When decomposing food doesn’t have enough oxygen, he explains, it turns into a toxic liquid and gas. The liquid is piped away, while the gas is released into the atmosphere. Every tonne of biodegradable waste that ends up in the landfill produces between 300 and 500 cubic metres of gas.

“There’s definitely a link between waste management and climate change,” Andrea adds. “Methane is a big contributor to greenhouse gases.”

RECYCLING FACTS

Knowing the facts about recycling*

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will:

-Power a 100-watt light bulb for almost an hour

-Power a computer for 20 minutes

-Power a colour TV for 15 minutes

-Power a washing machine for 10 minutes

For every ton of glass recycled, we save:

-1330 pounds of sand

-433 pounds of soda ash

-433 pounds of limestone

-151 pounds of feldspar

In the manufacturing process of recycled paper:

-74 per cent less air pollution is generated

-35 per cent less water pollution is generated

-58 per cent less water is required

-64 per cent less energy is required

*Provided by Valley Waste Resource Management.