Lesson Two: Recycling
And the reason why cities recycle
Last week we touched a bit on recycling - specifically in relation to coffee cups.
Let’s broaden that up a little shall we?
For the longest time, I thought recycling was done out the of goodness of the government’s heart. That it was a city’s due diligence to divert reusable materials instead of dumping them in already-crowded landfills. That it was simply the right thing to do.
Guess who was wrong? This girl 🙋
Recycling is actually a revenue line in municipal budgets. The recycling business balances how cost-effectively cities can:
- The Globe and Mail, 2018
Revenue depends on the type of material. Prices reflect market demand and have been fluctuating greatly in the last 2-3 years (between +23% to -110%).
A few examples from toronto.ca:
*Mixed paper fell 110% between 2017 and 2019 but a Toronto cost per tonne wasn’t stated on the Toronto.ca website.
The fluctuation in material price isn’t the only influence on program revenues. In 2018, China 🇨🇳(who purchases 65% of Canada’s reusable plastic), announced that they require recycling contamination levels to be below 0.5%.
Currently, Ontario’s contamination levels are between 25% - 30%.
That means it is costing cities more to sort through collected materials and meet this 0.5% cut off. Just for Toronto, managing the increasing contamination will cost the city $4 million per year.
That money could be put to better use in our communities. (Or like, the city could use it to adopt 8,000 dogs 🤷options, you know? 🐶)
Garbage and recycling is the #1 rising cost that municipalities are facing right now in many parts of the country. In some communities in the USA, the financial burden of recycling was too big so they cancelled their recycling programs. In Ontario, that’s not an option as communities over 5,000 people are mandated by the province to recycle.
The best way you can help is by recycling properly and being mindful of contaminants. Here are the biggest culprits:
The good news is that this is doable!
B.C.'s overall contamination rate is 6.5%, one of the best in North America.
We can all strive for this rate if not better!
If you’re curious and want to learn more, toronto.ca/recycleright is a great place to start!
Final note: we can’t just leave it to the city to figure out the recycling problem. We need to do our part to reduce, and where we can’t, we should help out the system to ensure that materials have the best chance of getting recycled.
