Hauling it in

Well, snow’s been gone for a month, so any excuse about the litter winter left behind can’t hold.

Still the area around Sheppards Bush abounds and parts of it too that back onto an industrial area whose dumpster can’t seem to hold their loads.

Today’s count:

• 7 Tim Hortons cups + 2 lids
• 1 Country Style cup + lid
• 1 Wendy’s soft drink cup
• 4 water bottles
• 2 pop cans
• 1 juice can
• 1 glass juice bottle
• 3 beer bottles

Someone once asked me why I was targeting Tim Hortons. I’m not. It’s just that the cups form the proportionately highest number of things I pick up.

Recyling coffee cups

There’s been a lot of confusion about coffee cups and which ones, if any, we can recycle here in York Region, but thanks to Mike Birett of the region’s waste management department, I’ve got some answers.
We have a huge recycling facility in East Gwillimbury at Davis Drive and Woodbine Ave. It’s on the farm of the father of someone I grew up with.

Now the harvest is recyclables and yes, I’ve checked, we can recycle Tim Hortons cups here and cups from other chains too, such as Coffee Time and Country Style.

While these vessels have a non-recyclabe liner, recycling mills still accept them. However, after all is said and done, the liner is left behind as waste, reducing the value of the cups.

Municipalities decide whether to accept those cups in their recycling programs after weighing out the factors of cost to recycle as opposed to sending to landfill and the convenience to residents.

York Region has decided that it will recycle our coffee cups. Best of all to use your own mug though and save a few pennies in the process.

I should add though that soft drink cups are absolutely unwanted because there is so little recyclable fibre in them.

An overwhelming task to weave your way through this mass of information.

Also overwhelming is a visit to the recycling facility, which gladly gives tours to interested groups. Contact the waste management department at recycling@region.york.on.ca or call the Region at 905- 895-1200 and press 3 for info.

Bagging it

I was going to do all kinds of research in relation to shredded paper and our recycling system in response to a bit of hue and cry in our local papers, but before I got around to it, a kind reporter from the Era-Banner did it for me. I’ve copied it below.

And, I do still pick up litter, but don’t think a daily list of it is all that interesting or relevant. More important are the implications I think.

The environmental advisory committee of the Town of Aurora is developing an anti-litter strategy. Suggestions welcome in the comment section below. 

Apr 12, 2007 08:12 AM

By: Serena Willoughby, Staff Writer

What are you putting in your blue box?If it’s plastic bags or shredded paper, York Region wants you to cut it out.

Plastic bags become tangled in the sorting equipment and jam recycling machines while shredded paper gets mixed with other recyclable items, contaminating the streams and making those materials harder to recycle.

An analysis of what was contaminating the waste stream told the region it needed to better inform you about what should be going in your blue box, said Mike Birett, York’s manager of diversion.

For example, many people buy flats of plastic water bottles or canned beverages and although the cardboard is recyclable, the clear plastic film encasing the beverages isn’t.

Part of the challenge for those who operate the region’s waste management facility in East Gwillimbury is keeping abreast of the different kinds of packaging being produced, Mr. Birett said.

While they’ve tried to tailor the facility to accept a variety of items, producers are constantly coming up with new kinds of packaging.

Another example is a 15-litre water container that sits on top of a water cooler.

Grocery stores tout them as being recyclable, but, in fact, can’t be recycled by the region’s facility.

That’s why the region is working with the province to bring about legislation to make retailers take back packaging such as plastic bags and styrofoam, Mr. Birett said.

In the early 1990s, many stores were beginning to collect packaging materials, but the programs died out as public interest in environmental programs waned, he said.

Earlier this month, a town in Manitoba took a different approach to keeping plastic bags out of the waste stream.

Inspired by Australia and Ireland where levies and bans have reduced the use of plastic bags, Leaf Rapids enacted a bylaw banning the bags.

Leaf Rapids partnered with Bring Your Own Bag, (bringyourbag.com), a program that works to reduce the amount of plastic bags produced.

“We don’t think everywhere could ban plastic bags tomorrow,” spokesperson Matt Wittek said.

That’s why the group spends much of its time working to bring awareness to the environmental cost of plastic bags.

“I don’t think a lot of people know plastic bags are that bad for the environment,” he said, explaining only a small percentage of the bag can be recycled, not to mention the they are made of a fossil fuel-based, non-renewable resource.

Mr. Birett agreed the best option is always for the producer to voluntarily take responsibility for their waste.

“If we have to use municipal resources to enforce a bylaw (on plastic bags), the taxpayer is ultimately paying for it,” he said.

Some companies already incorporate programs to decrease your reliance on plastic bags. Among them is the grocery chain No Frills, which charges you for each bag you use.

All Dominion and A&P stores accept used plastic bags at their locations, even ones they didn’t produce, which they recycle with other plastic film from their stores.

Retailers such as IKEA, Shoppers Drug Mart, Dominion/A & P and Cotton Ginny also offer low cost reusable bags.

The region is studying the possibility of expanding its waste management facility in East Gwillimbury to allow it to recycle more items, such as plastic bags.

But recycling shredded paper is not planned because shredding ruins the paper fibre, making it nearly impossible the recycle.

You should minimize the amount of paper you shred, the region says, only putting paper with confidential information through the shredder.

For now, those who live in Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan, where green bin programs are in place, can put shredded paper in their green boxes and can use plastic bags to line them.

York’s northern six municipalities — Newmarket, Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, Whitchurch-Stouffville and King — won’t have green box programs until September.

Your best bet for keeping shredded paper and plastic bags out of the waste stream is returning plastic bags to a retailer and putting shredded paper in your back yard composter.

For more information on York Region’s efforts to improve producer responsibility, go to www. amrc.ca/policy/draftEPR.pdf

For information and a list of retailers involved in campaigns to reduce reliance on plastic bags, go to www.bringyourbag.com

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GREAT MOMENTS IN PLASTIC BAG HISTORY

1957: The first baggies and sandwich bags on a roll are introduced.

1958: Poly dry cleaning bags compete with traditional brown paper.

1966: Plastic bag use in bread packaging takes over 25 to 30 per cent of the market.

1966: Plastic produce bags on a roll are introduced in grocery stores.

1969: The New York City sanitation department demonstrates plastic refuse bag curbside pickup is cleaner, safer and quieter than metal trash can pick up, beginning a shift to plastic can liners among consumers.

1973: The first commercial system for manufacturing plastic grocery bags becomes operational.

1974/75: Retailing giants such as Sears, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, Jordan Marsh and Allied switch to plastic merchandise bags.

1977: The plastic grocery bag is introduced to the supermarket industry as an alternative to paper.

1982: Kroger and Safeway start to replace traditional craft sacks with polyethylene “T-shirt” bags.

1990: The first blue bag recycling program begins with curbside collection.

1990: Consumer plastic bag recycling begins through a supermarket collection-site network.

1992: Nearly half of U.S. supermarkets have recycling available for plastic bags.

1996: Four of five grocery bags used are plastic.

Source: www.plasticbag.com

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WHAT’S SO BAD ABOUT PLASTIC BAGS?

· 100 million plastic bags a week go to landfills

· Plastic bags can take 15 to 1,000 years to break down

· Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.

· North America goes through 110 billion plastic shopping bags annually

· Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits that contaminate soil and waterways

· Production of plastic bags requires vast amounts of oil

· Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food

Source: www.bringyourbag.com

Borrowing ideas

No answer to the question on how many bottles of water are sold in Canada each year from the Canadian Bottled Water Association or how much energy it takes to produce them.

The Sierra Club had a crack at it too and couldn’t come up with any facts.

Yesterday at Sheppards Bush, I met a woman who had collected two liquor store bags full of bottles from the area closed to parking during the winter. She lives around the corner from the bush and regularly picks up litter there and can’t seem to stay on top of it she says.

Not only that, she worries about the number of liquor bottles she’s picking up because it means people are drinking and driving.

She and I both saw a mattress being picked up there. Someone didn’t know how to dispose of it (regular garbage) and didn’t take the time to find out.

On the subject of litter, here are a few relevant comments from the Toronto Star’s website’s Voices section:

• Here’s an idea for David Miller to achieve his 80% reductions in emissions by 2050: What about taxing commercial businesses that indirectly endorse idling through providing drive-throughs for their customers (e.g. coffee shops, banks, car washes, etc.)? In a city that has a no-idling by-law, this seems like a no-brainer to me. Similarly, businesses that have an extremely high volume of garbage every week (e.g. fast-food places) should pay more in municipal taxes for the huge burden of having to find somewhere/somehow to get rid of all of it.
• I would ask people to stop throwing trash on the ground. I would also ask the nice men who work for the city and pick up the recycling to retrieve the things that fall out of the bin. The stuff started out in the bin it’s part of the job getting it into the truck isn’t it?
  
• Given the millions of cups of coffee consumed in Canada every day, just think of how much less waste we would produce and how much less energy we would use if everyone used their own reusable coffee cups. I challenge people to start thinking about the resources and energy that go into the manufacture, transportation and storage of every paper coffee cup before it is used for 10 minutes then tossed by the side of the road.