· Paper is 38% of the waste stream.
· 40,000 trees are cut down each day to produce the newsprint for Canada's daily papers.
· For every tonne of mixed waste paper that is recycled you save 17 trees.
· Recycling one tonne of paper saves nearly six tonnes of CO2 emissions.
· The energy saved by recycling one glass bottle will light a 100 watt bulb for four hours.
· Nature can reduce a tin can to dust in 100 years, an aluminum can in 500 years and a glass bottle in 1 million years.
· During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans are made.
· Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to light one 100 watt bulb for 20 hours.
· It takes about 450 years for one plastic bottle to break down in a landfill.
· Plastic bags have a hard time decomposing; estimates range from ten to twenty years when exposed to air, to 500–1,000 years in a landfill.
· Compostable materials make up 40 - 60% of the waste stream.
· 12.9 million litres of used oil was recycled in Manitoba last year
· About 35% of the waste in Canada comes right out of our homes.
· On an average, each person in Manitoba disposes 870 kilograms of waste every year.
· Recycling all of your home’s waste newsprint, cardboard, glass and metal can reduce carbon emissions by about 400 kilograms a year.
· Landfill space savings by recycling one tonne of material: (Source: Stanford.edu)
|
Material |
Landfill space |
|
Aluminum |
10 cubic yards |
|
Newsprint |
4.6 cubic yards |
|
Office paper |
3.3 cubic yards |
|
Plastic |
30 cubic yards |
|
Steel |
4 cubic yards |
|
Glass |
2 cubic yards |
· One liter of used motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate one million liters of fresh water.
· Plastic products contribute 7% by weight and 30% by volume to municipal solid waste. Moreover, recycling a tonne of PET containers can save 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space.
(Statistics from WRW Canada, 2008; Statistics Canada, 2006; US EPA and Environment Canada)