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Recycling in Canada

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Two boys in Montreal in April 1942 collect rubber tires and boots to be recycled as part of Canada's war effort.

This article outlines the position and trends ofrecyclinginCanada.Since the 1980s, most mid to largemunicipalitiesin most provinces haverecyclingprograms, relying on curbside collection with either bins, boxes, or bags. These systems are not standardized, and the specific process differs for each province. Certain provinces have container-deposit systems in place for bottles, cans, and other beverage containers.

As of 2012, Canada has arecycling ratearound 26.8%.[1]

History[edit]

In 1981 Resource Integration Systems (RIS) in collaboration withLaidlaw Internationaltested the first blue box recycling system on 1500 homes inKitchener, Ontario.Due to the success of the project the City of Kitchener put out a contract for public bid in 1984 for a recycling system citywide. Laidlaw won the bid and continued with the popular blue box recycling system. Today hundreds of cities around the world use the blue box system or a similar variation.[2]

By province[edit]

Container-deposit legislationin North America.
Container deposits on most bottles and cans
Container deposits only on beer/alcoholic beverage containers
Container deposits discontinued
No container deposits

Municipalities andprovinceswith recycling programs:

  • Ontario– Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Northumberland County, Durham, York, Niagara, Halton, Peel Regions, Woodstock, Thunder Bay, Brantford, Waterloo
  • Prince Edward Island
  • Quebec– Montreal, Quebec City, Laval
  • British Columbia– Metro Vancouver Region, Victoria
  • Nova Scotia– seven different regions: Cape Breton, Pictou-Antigonish-Guysborough, East Hants-Cumberland-Colchester, Halifax Regional Municipality, Annapolis-Kings, South Shore-West Hants, Yarmouth Digby[3]
  • Saskatchewan– Moose Jaw, Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert
  • Alberta– Edmonton, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Fort McMurray, Canmore
  • Manitoba– Winnipeg
  • Newfoundland and Labrador– St. John's

Alberta[edit]

InAlberta,theAlberta Recycling Management Authority(also known as "Alberta Recycling" ) is anarms-length bodyset up by the Government of Alberta under the Ministry of the Environment to coordinate recycling in the province. It administers thesurchargethat has been added to the price ofelectronics,paint,andtiressold in the province since 2005 to pay for the recycling of those products in Alberta, and it helps to administer the province's householdhazardous waste disposalprogram.[4]

A separate management authority, theBeverage Container Management Board(BCMB), is responsible for recycling ofbeveragecontainers.[5]Beverage container recycling regulationswere first introduced province-wide in 1972, but the BCMB was created in 1997 to create a provincial oversight body for the industry. The BCMB oversees twonon-profit corporationswhich process the materials, the Alberta Beer Container Corporation (ABCC) for standard-sizedbeer bottles(which reuses rather than recycles the bottles) and theAlberta Beverage Container Recycling Corporation(ABCRC) for all other beverage containers. Containers are actually collected at privately owned, for-profitbottle depots.As of 2011there are over 200 such bottle depots in Alberta, which are members of theAlberta Bottle Depot Association.[6]

The Recycling Council of Alberta is a registered charity which has promoted recycling in Alberta since 1987.[7]Specific industry groups lobby for their niche within the recycling sector, such as the Alberta Plastics Recycling Association.[8]

Curbside recyclingof newsprint, cardboard, plastic packaging, and other non-food household wastes is the responsibility of the individualmunicipalities of Alberta.Most of Alberta's most populous municipalities haveblue box,blue bag, or blue binrecycling containerprograms.[citation needed]The two largest municipalities, however, adopted waste-diverting policies at a very different pace.Edmontonbegan a pilot project in curbside recycling forsingle-family housesin 1986 and adopted it citywide in 1988, expanding over the years to include more items (Christmas treesin 1990, andconstruction wastein 2008), and higher levels of processing including large-scale composting and capturingmethaneto produce energy. In addition, the scope of collection has expanded to include multifamily buildings in 2001 and businesses in 2010. It is expected that when thewaste-to-biofuelplant is completed in 2012, Edmonton will divert 90% of its waste fromlandfills.[9]

By contrastCalgaryconducted a pilot project on curbside recycling in 1991 and then abandoned curbside collection for a drop-off system until a second pilot program in 2004,[10][11]and currently collects recyclates only at private houses, with no plans to introduce collection at condo and apartment buildings before 2015.[12]

Edmontonstarted their curbside recycling program in 1988.[13]In 2021, Edmonton transitioned from a bag to cart system for garbage and food waste collection.[14]

On September 10, 2020, the Edmonton city council approved a 25-year waste strategy to reduce the landfill waste by 90%. The city is also transitioning into a new cart system rather from the blue bag system to dispose of waste.[15]

Recycling Rate[edit]

Canada has an extremely high rate ofplastic wasteof 3 million tonnes per year.[16]Out of all the material that Canadians dispose of in the recycling bin, 12% is exported to other countries, such as Malaysia, where it is processed and damages the environment and the health of the population.[17]Of the remaining 88%, 86% goes to the landfill, 9% is recycled, and the rest is burned for energy.[18][19][20]

According to a 2019 study, only 9 percent of waste in Canada goes to recycling.[21]

As of 2019, British Columbia has the highest recycling rate, at 69 percent.[22]In Ontario, the recycling rate has declined from 60.2% in 2018 to 57.3% in 2019.[23]

Collection processes[edit]

These three differently-coloured bins are used to sort waste in Toronto.

Thecurbside collectionsystems for recyclates vary acrossCanada:

Materials collected[edit]

A bottle-picker in Kelowna, British Columbia, in 2010

The different types of recyclable materials collected include:

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Waste Atlas(2012) Country Data: Canada
  2. ^McGinnis, J., Findlay, R., Rathbone, G., Shantora, V., &Oliver, B. (n.d.). The blue box story, the history. Retrieved from"Durham Sustain Ability, Environmental Sustainability Program Ontario".Archived fromthe originalon 2013-08-02.Retrieved2013-07-29.;O'Connor, Ryan. (2015).The First Green Wave: Pollution Probe and the Origins of Environmental Activism in Ontario.Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
  3. ^"About Solid Waste-Resource Management | Recycling and Waste | Nova Scotia Environment".April 2009.
  4. ^Alberta Recycling Management Authority – Vision, Mission & Goals.Albertarecycling.ca. Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  5. ^I want to recycle my... – Alberta Environment.Environment.alberta.ca (2010-04-16). Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  6. ^About ABCRC.Abcrc.com. Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  7. ^Welcome to the Recycling Council of Alberta – Mission and Goals.Recycle.ab.ca. Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  8. ^APRA.Recycleyourplastic.ca. Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  9. ^History of Waste Management in Edmonton,City of Edmonton. Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  10. ^Calgary's Recycling History,The City of Calgary. Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  11. ^City of Calgary Gets Set to Roll Out its Blue Cart Recycling Program,The City of Calgary, April 6, 2009
  12. ^Cuthbertson, Richard. (2011-03-08)Calgary condo residents must wait until 2015 for recycling program.Calgary Herald.Retrieved on 2011-04-02.
  13. ^"Recycling".City of Edmonton.Retrieved4 March2021.
  14. ^"Waste Collection | City of Edmonton".
  15. ^"Edmonton Cart Rollout Demonstration Phase | City of Edmonton".
  16. ^"Canada one-step closer to zero plastic waste by 2030".7 October 2020.
  17. ^Greenpeace Southeast Asia. (2018, November 27). The recycling myth. Retrieved from:https://www.greenpeace.org/southeastasia/publication/549/the-recycling-myth/
  18. ^Statistics Canada. (2019). Materials diverted, by type. Table: 38-10-0034-01. Retrieved from:https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3810003401
  19. ^Deloitte & Cheminfo Services Inc. (2019). Economic study of the Canadian plastic industry, markets and waste. Environment and Climate Change Canada. Retrieved from:http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/eccc/En4-366-1-2019-eng.pdf
  20. ^Aldag, J. (June 2019). The last straw: turning the tide onplastic pollutionin Canada; Report of the standing committee on environment and sustainable development. House of Commons.
  21. ^"Canada is drowning in plastic waste — and recycling won't save us".9 March 2021.
  22. ^"Before you recycle those unwashed takeout containers, consider where your blue bin recyclables actually end up".17 July 2019.
  23. ^"Canadian EPR program sees decline in recycling rate".31 August 2021.

External links[edit]

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