Why Canada’s recycling industry is in crisis mode

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by 8sPOT

Maybe the answer is hemp. Plastic bottles that are fully bio-degradable, in fact why not start using hemp for all kinds of stuff?



https://hempplastic.com/

Hemp bottle: "I don't feel so good Mr Stark"

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Ace

I think i must be way under utilizing my green bin, if pizza boxes are good, then can all cardboard go in there? How about paper? What else am i missing?

I'm constantly at max on the blue and 5% on the green, would love to shift that around.

Yes, throw all your paper and cardboard in there. Throw your paper coffee cups in there. The wax will decompose. Newspapers. They should also accept anything made with cotton but they don't.

[Locke]

Ugh. What drives me crazy is Styrofoam. Why am I throwing this in the Black Bin? Its enormous, the bin only gets collected every other week and why are we not recycling Styrofoam?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Locke

Ugh. What drives me crazy is Styrofoam. Why am I throwing this in the Black Bin? Its enormous, the bin only gets collected every other week and why are we not recycling Styrofoam?

Because no one wants it.


Don't some Scandinavian countries burn their garbage for power? We should do that.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by AltaGuy

Can Alberta start being paid to accept all of the rest of Canada's recyclables, and maybe some of the US's, and use some of the oilsands lands to create giant processing facilities and landfills? Seems the science would be lucrative.

Most ‘oil sands land’ is subsurface. Wellpads surrounded by trees.

When the companies with surface mines complete cleaning the oil out of the sand, there is reclamation.

Here is an article from last year that shows how Syncrude has reclaimed the land of a mine and has a thriving bison herd which has grown from 30 to 300

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...ease-1.4538030

[Shazam]

Yeah but the bison are mutated.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Because no one wants it.


Don't some Scandinavian countries burn their garbage for power? We should do that.

But power is The Devil.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Shazam

They should also accept anything made with cotton but they don't.

That drives me up the bloody wall.

Cotton? No. Oh, and in the meantime you can't install a garbage disposal because we're worried about the amount of water they use, but we don't care how many times you run crap through the dishwasher to clean it for recycling.

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by DownhillGoat

That drives me up the bloody wall.

Cotton? No. Oh, and in the meantime you can't install a garbage disposal because we're worried about the amount of water they use, but we don't care how many times you run crap through the dishwasher to clean it for recycling.

Are you saying you run your recyclables through the dishwasher first? Do other people do this? Am I supposed to do this?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Yes, throw all your paper and cardboard in there. Throw your paper coffee cups in there. The wax will decompose. Newspapers. They should also accept anything made with cotton but they don't.

I don’t have a source but I don’t believe that we have enough green plant matter to compost al of the paper and cardboard waste. So while some of these Cotton and Paper streams are acceptable I think they can’t take 100%

The other question is time, I don’t believe the wax coffee cups fit into the compost programs lifecycle so you would continually accumulate more and more. Not sure on this though

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Locke

Ugh. What drives me crazy is Styrofoam. Why am I throwing this in the Black Bin? Its enormous, the bin only gets collected every other week and why are we not recycling Styrofoam?

Cochrane apparently does.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Because no one wants it.


Don't some Scandinavian countries burn their garbage for power? We should do that.

Edmonton does.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Cochrane apparently does.

Not in our blue bins we don't.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by DownhillGoat

Not in our blue bins we don't.

No, but there is a drop off IIRC. Or has that stopped now?

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Are you saying you run your recyclables through the dishwasher first? Do other people do this? Am I supposed to do this?

I absolutely do not. However given the fact that anything evem remotely contaminated is not acceptable for recycling, if people actually cared about recycling, they probably should run it through the dishwasher first, or at least spend copious amounts of water cleaning everything.

Frankly I don't care. Burn it. Bury it. Move it to Saskatoon and make a ski hill out of it. Makes more sense and it's cheaper.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by GGG

I don’t have a source but I don’t believe that we have enough green plant matter to compost al of the paper and cardboard waste. So while some of these Cotton and Paper streams are acceptable I think they can’t take 100%

The other question is time, I don’t believe the wax coffee cups fit into the compost programs lifecycle so you would continually accumulate more and more. Not sure on this though

I'm sure the city would prefer you stuff all your paper into the blue bin, and I'm sure they get plenty of "green" - all the stuff from the sewage treatment plants gets composted as well (and has been for decades now).

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

No, but there is a drop off IIRC. Or has that stopped now?

There is. I assumed you meant in the bins, because I assume there's somewhere in Calgary to drop off Styrofoam as well. The conversation was blue bin related I thought.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by DownhillGoat

I absolutely do not. However given the fact that anything evem remotely contaminated is not acceptable for recycling, if people actually cared about recycling, they probably should run it through the dishwasher first, or at least spend copious amounts of water cleaning everything.

Frankly I don't care. Burn it. Bury it. Move it to Saskatoon and make a ski hill out of it. Makes more sense and it's cheaper.

This is not accurate. Recycling is a very broad term and has many subcategories. Many recycling operations require a threshold of recyclable material and it doesn't need to be 100%. For example, if you have 1 ton of paper, and 5% of that ton is other material such as plastic or wax, the entire lot is still recyclable.

[GP_Matt]

I just wash my recyclables with the hand washed dishes. Then throw them in our blue bag because Edmonton doesn't currently require gigantic bins at every house.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

This is not accurate. Recycling is a very broad term and has many subcategories. Many recycling operations require a threshold of recyclable material and it doesn't need to be 100%. For example, if you have 1 ton of paper, and 5% of that ton is other material such as plastic or wax, the entire lot is still recyclable.

Literally, from the OP's article:

Though two years ago this might have been fine, food waste is now a major problem and can contaminate otherwise perfectly good recyclables. Wash out your jars and bottles before recycling.

The accompanying picture is a jar with salsa residue.

I'm discussing jars, cans, containers. etc. Not plastic particulates in paper.

If they have a 5% threshold, I'll stand corrected, but from what I see from that article, that's not the case.