Creative Commons photo by Flickr user The-Lane-Team

On October 1st, consumers in B.C. will shoulder a price increase on small appliances. But this modest fee will make a big impact on waste reduction throughout the province.

Tomorrow, The Canadian Electrical Stewardship Association is launching Unplugged, a small appliance recycling program. The motivation: over 2 million small appliances wind up in British Columbia’s landfills annually. Never before seen in Canada, this program will accept over 120 types of small appliances, saving even your electric toothbrush from the landfill.

The program is non-profit, non-governmental, and completely funded by the consumer surcharge. The small hike covers a free drop-off at the 100+ drop-off stations located across the province, as well as all recycling, transportation, and collection costs incurred by the program. Purveyors of the initiative ensure consumers that the recycling fee is not a tax, as the money is not gathered or tracked by the government. But it is on the government’s radar as Environment Minister Terry Lake sings his praises in the business review canada earlier this month.

With all the expected benefits of increased recycling, such as the re-use of aluminum which takes 95% less energy than it does to produce it with raw materials, the program is not without its critics. Although the public will be able to view data such as how much material picked up is actually recycled in Unplugged’s planned annual report, some still worry about a lack of transparency.

This article expresses concern regarding the non-disclosure of processing partners prior to contract completion. These concerns address the export practises of the potential partners as recycling depots can be known to dump electronic waste on developing countries. However, the identities of the partners are scheduled to be posted when the program launches.

With the timely acceptance of such products as bathroom scales (bring on the turkey), beard trimmers (sweet Movember), and gelato makers (no excuse, but have you ever actually used it?), the West is showing up the rest of Canada once again as a recycler’s haven — although this PEI fisherman’s DIY approach to reusing is also a classic and oh-so-poetic.

1. The 2010 Games boast “the greenest medals yet,” the papers clamored following their October unveiling. That’s technically true, since the medals include recycled metal reclaimed from electronic waste. But out of 2,855 kilograms of metal used to manufacture this year’s medals, recycled content is just 12.41 kg, or 0.43 percent by weight. All the silver used to make the medals weighs about the same as a pick-up truck; the quantity of recycled silver weighs about as much as a chihuahua.

2. Vancouver-based Teck Resources supplied the metals, from mines in Canada, Alaska, Chile, and Peru. If that name seems familiar, it should be: Teck has been the target of environmental protest since 1989 for allegedly exceeding permitted waste-dumping limits at Alaska’s Red Dog mine.

3. Both the gold and silver medal contain the same amount of silver. A gold medal is 93 per cent silver—the other seven per cent is the gold plating.

4. The metal in a gold medal is worth about $1,700 on an ounce-for-ounce basis—but an Olympic win can be worth a lot more financially. The Canadian Olympic Committee’s Athlete’s Excellence Fund offers a $20,000 paycheque for bringing home gold.

5. Sponsorship opportunities and speaking engagements can offer even more money for athletes. Runner Donovan Bailey earns about $15,000 for a speaking engagement, and Speedo gave Michael Phelps $1 million for his eight gold wins at Beijing in 2008.

There are better ways than the scrap heap to deal with an old computer. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user ÇP.

You know it’s wrong to toss your e-waste in the trash but you also know that too often e-waste ends up in a country like India or China, where labourers are exposed to toxic fumes and cancer-causing dioxins as they strip down old electronics, and discarded heavy metals end up contaminating local soil and water.

Unfortunately, there are no national standards for e-waste recyclers, so making sure your old PC isn’t being illegally shipped overseas requires a bit of work on your part. Here are five tips to help you out with that process:

1. Contact your province’s recycling council or your regional district office for a list of recommended recyclers. Bear in mind these recyclers are only “recommendations,” so you’ll have to exercise due diligence. Ask whether they carry an ISO number, which certifies they adhere to internationally recognized business and environmental standards. Also ask how they recycle e-waste. Locally? In what types of facilities? Some recyclers will send components to specialized smelters in Europe, but that’s rare. Any mention of sending e-waste to India, Africa, or China should raise red flags.
2. Find a reputable computer refurbishment centre such as reBOOT or Industry Canada’s Computers for Schools. Both agencies will give new life to your end-of-life hardware and distribute it to a non-profit or charity. You can find your nearest reBOOT or Computers for Schools program on their websites.
3. Living in Western Canada? Then drop off your e-waste at London Drugs. This electronics and pharmacy chain even accepts hardware purchased elsewhere for a nominal fee—$5 for a laptop, $10 for a desktop.
4. Consider returning your hardware to its retailer or manufacturer. Most national electronics retailers use reputable recyclers, as do manufacturers like Dell, Apple, and HP, which all have programs that allow you to mail back discontinued hardware.
5. Here’s one option that’s so easy, it doesn’t even require you to find a recycler: reducing. “Most of us who email and surf the web don’t need anything more powerful than a Pentium III,” says Vancouver reBOOT general manager Robert Gilson. So think twice before you buy your next cellphone or laptop. You’ll do the environment—and your wallet—a favour.

Toronto's city-worker strike has exposed just how wasteful our lives are. Creative Commons photo by Laurie McGregor.

The buzzword around Toronto for the past two weeks has been “garbage.” The garbage that is pilling up around public canisters into miniature CN Towers. The garbage that is filling parks and arenas a quarter full arousing smells and attracting pests to local neighbors. And the garbage Torontonians left behind after the celebratory mess of the Pride Parade and Canada Day.

Its day 12 of a public workers strike in Toronto and already there are signs of our livable-city utopia coming crashing down as garbage stinks up our homes, city and, apparently, attitudes. Some argue the city is keeping its cool. But like all things under smoldering summer heat, it can only keep so long until it ferments. This summer Torontonians will need to face the problem festering in the bins outside our houses: the enormous amount of waste we make.

According to the Toronto Star, Ontario produces 12.4 million tonnes of garbage annually. That is the equivalent weight of more than 80,000 fully loaded Boeing 707 jetliners. Out of that, only 3 million tonnes—just 20 percent—of garbage is diverted into recycled goods despite our aggressive recycling system. Many Ontario landfills will reach full capacity in less than 20 years.

Much of our waste is plastic water bottles, packaging and coffee cups. In Toronto alone, there are 1 million plastic water bottles discarded daily and another 1 million coffee cups, says the Star.

But we can’t blame Starbucks and the Coca-Cola water brand Dasani for this. We are the consumers creating this waste. And while climate change is the umbrella issue of our time, there are other issues that get veiled over. Like the big smelly elephant in the room that nobody likes talking about – our consumption and the waste that follows it.

As individuals, there are many ways to reduce our trash footprint. Adria Vasil promotes several ways to do this in her EcoHolic column, including: composting, going meat-free, package-free, as well as things we commonly don’t think about—such as separating our condoms and “hygiene products.”

GarbageRevolution.com is a film and website that experiments with keeping one’s garbage for an extended period of time to assess our individual garbage output.

There are plenty of additional ways we can redirect our waste into more useful means outside of dumpsites. Treehugger reports that Broward County, Fla., for example is using garbage as a resource in waste-based energy production, creating alternatives for our energy crisis.  And Houston’s Waste Management will be converting garbage into fuel and electricity with waste gasification in a joint venture with InEnTec, says Kevin Bulls in Technology Review.

There are plenty of ways of slimming down and transforming our waste streams. But the one thing we can’t do is continue to think of garbage as a simple summer inconvenience with the public workers strike.  Otherwise we will literally sink communities and the oceans with our Timmy’s coffee cups. Let’s be bold and face our own stink.

[image source]

Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist and This Magazine’s resident eco-blogger. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors, and is the eco-correspondent to MTV News Canada.

More recyclable, sure, but that doesn't make it "green"

The Claim:

Nestlé Waters Canada says its bottled water is a “healthy, eco-friendly choice” and, feeling so confident about this claim, ran an ad in the October 20, 2008, issue of the Globe and Mail stating that its “bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.” [See the ad here — PDF, 700kb]

The Investigation:

At first glance, there might be something to Nestlé Waters Canada’s claim: It’s made major cuts to its material usage—30 percent less plastic, 20 percent fewer paper labels, 65 percent less corrugate—and plans to make further reductions this year. The company claims to have the “lightest plastic beverage container in the industry,” says John Challinor, director of corporate affairs. And Nestlé Waters Canada and its partners fund nearly 50 percent of Canada’s recycling programs.

But recycling still produces five to 10 percent of the energy used to make new plastic. And due to health regulations, these bottles can only be recycled as non-food products such as carpets, fleece shirts, and blue boxes, rather than as new beverage bottles. Then there’s the fact that one plastic bottle takes anywhere from 450 to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill. According to Nestlé Waters’ own claims, in Ontario that’s where about 40 percent of water bottles end up.

“Nestlé is trying to spin the bottle by declaring it eco-friendly, when the fact of the matter is there is no green solution for bottled water” says Joe Cressy of the Polaris Institute. Frustrated, his group teamed up with the Council of Canadians, Ecojustice and others to file a complaint with Advertising Standards Canada against Nestlé’s Globe ad.

The Verdict:

That complaint was dismissed for violation of confidentiality after the groups sent out a press release in December 2008, but environmentalists don’t need to hear ASC’s opinion to reject Nestlé’s claims. Says Meera Karunananthan, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians, “When the carbon footprint of drinking out of your tap is zero, you can’t deny that the environmental impact of bottled water is more harmful.”

One way the region could help divert more waste is by insisting that its commercial and industrial taxpayers start recycling, just as residents have done for years. After all, it’s the out-of-town visitors, and the businesses that cater to them, that are creating the garbage problem. Fewer than three percent of hotels offer recycling bins to their guests and you’d be hard-pressed to find a single bin in busy tourist districts or parks. One of the main reasons for this is that while residents pay for recycling pick-up as part of their municipal taxes, most businesses do not and must pay out of pocket for the service. “We don’t really recycle at all, and I don’t have time for this,” says Frank Taylor, general manager of the Best Western Fallsview, echoing the sentiments of many business owners when asked about their recycling habits.

Whether they wish to or not, all Ontario businesses have been legally obliged to recycle since 1994. But without any follow-through from the proper authorities, it’s been left up to businesses to decide whether to bother. “The Ministry of the Environment is simply not enforcing the regulation because, right now, it doesn’t see it as a priority,” says David McRobert, senior legal counsel to the province’s environmental commissioner.

“We are aware that this is an issue that isn’t being addressed, and we need to have a look at enforcing the recycling regulations,” says Arthur Chamberlain, a spokesperson for Ontario’s minister of the environment. He says the ministry is looking into the possibility of conducting recycling audits of businesses to make them more accountable.

But when that will happen is anyone’s guess. And the outcome may be too late to make a difference. “This is happening all over the place, not just in Niagara Falls. I think we have squeezed all the recycling we can out of city residents,” says Gord Perks of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, who is well aware of the one-sided recycling situation. “It’s time to make the big guys do it. Without big change now, everyone is going to suffer in the long run.”