Facts and Quotables
Factoids on Pollution: back to top
"In one hour, a single container ship entering port generates the air pollution of 350,000 cars"
-Teri Shore, Clean Vessels Campaign Director for Bluewater Network. (USA)
sent courtesy of Clean Nova Scotia and quoting from "Road & Track" magazineOne busload of passengers takes 40 cars off the road during rush hour, saves 70,000 litres of fuel and avoids over 175 tonnes of emissions a year.
-ClimateChange.comRecycling all of your home's waste newsprint, cardboard, glass and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 400 kg a year.
-Earth CareFactoids on Recycling back to top
courtesy of Raven Recycling Society, 100 Galena Road, Whitehorse, Yukon, Y1A 2W6Paper
• Manufacturing recycled paper produces 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution, as well as using 58% less water and 64% less energy than making paper from virgin wood pulp.
• 42% of material we (Whitehorse) throw in our landfill each year is wood or wood products.
• One edition of the Sunday New York Times consumes about 75,000 trees.
• 1 tonne of recycled paper saves 3700 pounds of lumber and 24,000 gallons of water.
• making one tonne of recycled paper uses only about 60% of the energy needed to make a tonne of virgin paper.Energy
• recycling aluminum (the highest theoretical potential for saving energy) saves 95%
• recycling glass -- energy savings of 33%
• recycling paper -- energy savings of 64%
• energy savings per tonne of finished plastic bottles is enough to fill a 20-gallon gas tank every week for ten years.
• recycling a glass jar saves enough energy to light a bulb for four hours.
• recycling old corrugated cardboard cuts sulfur dioxide emissions in half and saves 1/4 of the energy used to manufacture it.
• by recycling one tonne of paper you save:
-17 trees
-6953 gallons of water
-463 gallons of oil
-583 pounds of air pollution
• It takes 95% less energy to produce new aluminum from discarded aluminum pop cans than from raw materials.
• Recycling one aluminum can saves the amount of energy to light one 100 watt bulb for 20 hours or run a TV for 3 hours.Glass
• making glass from recycled materials cuts related air pollution 20% and water pollution 50%
• Ontario residents recycled over 304 million glass bottles and jars in 1992 through blue box and recycling depot programs. Laid end to end, these containers would circle the Earth twice from pole to pole.Plastics/Aluminum
• Canadians take home over 55 million plastic shopping bags every WEEK
• recycling plastics and aluminum uses only 5% to 10% as much energy as making new plastic or smelting aluminum.
• Recycling a tonne of PET containers saves 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space.
• 5 PET bottles yield enough fiber for an XL T-shirt.Organics
• Canadians produce approximately 7 million tonnes of organic waste each year.
• 2/3 of our household waste can be composted.Miscellaneous
• 5 billion drink boxes are thrown away each year in North America.
• North America has 8% of the world's population, consumes 1/3 of the world's resources and produces almost half of the world's non-organic garbage.
• 70% of landfilled waste could be either reused or recycled.
• One litre of oil can contaminate a million litres of ground water.
• In North America, approximately 20% of our paper, plastic, glass and metal goods are currently made from recycled material. Experts believe that 50% could be easily achieved.Packaging
• Approximately 35% of municipal solid waste is packaging
• In the U.S., 5.6% of all steel, 50% of all paper, 65-70% of all glass, 25-30% of all aluminium, and 23.5% of all plastics produced are used for packaging.
• $1 out of every $10 spent on food goes into packaging.Factoids on Waste: back to top
In nature there can be no waste - everything produced is used as a resource by some other living organism. There is a continuous cycling of the elements.By the age of 6 months, the average Canadian has consumed the same amount of resources as the average person in the developing world consumes in a lifetime.
-Recycling Council of OntarioIn a lifetime, the average North American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage. A 68 kg adult will leave a legacy of 40,825 kg of trash.
Natural Resources CanadaThe presence of humans in a variety of ecosystems is normal and expected. We, like plants and animals, need food, water and shelter. Our goal should be to do this in a way that ensures our habitats are maintained for future generations.
-Parks CanadaOn April 26, 2003, the City of Toronto had its best "Community Clean-Up Day" event ever. More than 6,000 people cleaned up sites such as parks, ravines, watercourses, lane ways and other public areas.
-City of TorontoWhile packaging is sometimes necessary for health and shelf life reasons, one look at store shelves will alert you to the trend for increasingly excessive packaging. By taking a few extra moments to consider alternatives at the grocery store before you buy, you can save money and reduce trash.
-Government of CanadaPlastic products contribute 7% by weight and 30% by volume to municipal solid waste.
-Recycling Council of OntarioIn 2002, Canadian governments and businesses disposed of 31 million tones of municipal, commercial & industrial, and construction & demolition waste. That's 2.7 kg of waste for each Canadian per day!
-Statistics Canada, 2004Across Canada it costs more than $1.5 billion per year to dispose of garbage.
-Destination Conservation10 plastic soft drink bottles are required to make the fiberfill for one ski jacket.
-Greater Vancouver Regional District: Just the FactsPresently, 80% of municipal and industrial solid waste in Canada is disposed of by landfilling processes, with the remainder disposed through recycling, resource recovery and incineration.
-Government of CanadaLandfills sites account for about 38% of Canada's total methane emissions.
-Environment CanadaIn 2002, western Canada's three provincial Used Oil Filter and Container Recycling Programs recovered 94 million litres of use oil, the equivalent of over twice the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez. That sounds like a lot but it's only about 75% of the used oil available for recycling!
-usedoilrecycling.comAbout 1/3 of our waste is paper and paperboard. Another third is yard and kitchen waste. The rest is divided among glass, metals, plastics, textiles, wood and other materials.
-Environment CanadaThere are well over 10,000 landfill sites in Canada.
-Environment CanadaOne pound of newspaper can be recycled to make six cereal boxes, six egg cartons or 2,000 sheets of writing paper.
-Recycling Council of OntarioRecycling one ton of glass saves about nine gallons of fuel oil.
-Recycling Council of OntarioThe automobile is the most recycled consumer product in the world today. It takes about 45 seconds to shred the average automobile into fist-sized pieces for recycling.
-Clean Air FoundationThe average baby will use about 10,000 diapers before toilet training. An estimated 1 billion trees a year are required to produce disposable diapers.
-Buy RecycledThe first PET (plastic) bottle was recycled in 1977.
-The National Association of PET Container ResourcesCanadians spent $307.5 billion on retail purchases in 2002.
-Statistics CanadaA 600-watt photocopier left on standby for 24 hours a day uses about $750 of electricity in a year. If this machine is turned on only during normal working hours, two thirds of this electricity will be saved.
-New Zealand Ministry for the EnvironmentWater is a limited resource that we need to use wisely. Only 1% of the world's water supply is usable, 97% is ocean and 2% is ice frozen at the poles.
-Environment CanadaIncinerating 10,000 tonnes of waste creates 1 job, landfilling the same amount creates 6 jobs, recycling the same 10,000 tonnes creates 36 jobs.
-Clean Nova ScotiaNearly 55% of every aluminium can is made from recycled aluminium.
-American RecyclerRecycling one tonne of newspaper saves 19 trees, 3 cubic metres of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatt hours of energy, 29,000 litres of water and 30 kgs of air pollution.
-Recycling Council of Ontario