Garbage. Trash. Rubbish. Whatever you call it, it’s a big problem. To celebrate Earth Day on April 22, I went on a tour of the Waterloo Region landfill and recycling centre. It was fascinating to get the inside scoop on the mysterious world of waste management, and to learn what happens after we put our bins to the curb on garbage day.
About the tour
When my younger daughter was in elementary school, her class went on a tour of the landfill and recycling centre. She often tells me it was one of the most interesting field trips she went on. I was sorry I missed it.
As I work hard to reduce waste and live more sustainably, I regularly consult the Region of Waterloo’s Waste Management website. When I heard they were offering tours for Earth Day, I signed up.
The tour started in the Waste Management Operations Centre where we saw equipment and displays and had a chance to chat with staff. From there, we boarded a school bus for a guided tour of the landfill site. Then, we stopped at the Materials Recycling Centre before heading back to the Operations Centre.
What I learned from the Waste Management tour
The tour was a great learning experience. Here are some highlights:
We generate a lot of garbage
Our regional landfill processes 154,000 tonnes of waste every year. Based on our population, that’s about 250 kilograms—over 500 pounds—of waste per resident.
The mounds of garbage and recycling were a reminder of the truth in this quote from Annie Leonard.
There’s no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.
Annie Leonard, Greenpeace USA
A walk around our neighbourhood on garbage day makes me shake my head. Outside some houses, I often see 4 or more bags of garbage, along with overflowing recycling boxes and green bins. It makes me wonder what people are doing to generate so much waste.
It’s easy to get discouraged but there is good news.
Our actions make a difference
Seeing the amount of waste was alarming, but it was reassuring to hear the impact of the green bin and recycling programs.
Waterloo Region has a long history of recycling. In fact, Nyle Ludolph pioneered the blue bin program here back in the 1980s. The regional recycling centre is named in his honour.
Faithfully using the blue box and green bin program has significantly reduced the amount of waste my family sends to landfill. We put out just one garbage bag every two weeks. Everything else is reused, recycled or composted.
Naysayers often say that recycling doesn’t work. While I agree that it isn’t a magic solution—and it should only be a last resort after refusing, reducing and reusing—recycling does make a difference.
(See Do you know the 5 Rs of waste reduction? to learn how you can reduce your waste.)
Four or five years ago, I read that our landfill would be full in 15 to 20 years. Thanks to the success of our blue box and green bin programs, waste management staff now estimate our regional landfill will last another 20 to 30 years. What we do matters!
Interesting facts from the tour
Here are some interesting facts I learned during our visit:
- Recyclables are compacted into bales for shipping to various manufacturers who buy the materials and break them down to be reused in other products.
- Our landfill has its very own pets. Honey, the Harris Hawk, has an important job. She’s responsible for scaring seagulls away from the landfill so the workers can do their jobs. Honey’s friend Alaska, a red-tailed hawk, is in training to work at the landfill too.
- Decomposing waste creates landfill gas which is mostly methane—a big contributor to climate change. The Waste Management team collects the landfill gas and turns it into enough electricity to power 4,000 houses every month.
Plastic recycling facts
- Plastic-coated cartons represent about 8% of the material sorted at the recycling centre. 5 billion drink boxes are thrown away each year in North America. One recycled milk carton can be turned into about 5 sheets of office paper. And the ReWall Company turns plastic coated paper cartons into an eco-friendly building material.
- High Density Polyethylene (HDPE#2) represents about 10% of the waste processed in the recycling centre. Recycling it saves up to 66% of the energy required to make new HDPE from fresh materials. Once recycled, it’s turned into plastic lumber, furniture, and other materials.
- Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET#1) accounts for about 32% of materials sorted in the recycling centre. That’s mostly water and beverage bottles! Recycled PET is used to make clothing like polyester or polar fleece. Sadly, more than 480 billion plastic drinking bottles were sold across the globe in 2016, and only about half of them were recycled.
- Recycling a single plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60-watt bulb for six hours.
Aluminum recycling facts
- Aluminum comes from bauxite, one of the most common metals in the earth’s crust. Recycling one tonne of aluminum can save five tonnes of bauxite ore.
- Aluminum can be recycled forever without getting weaker.
- Manufacturing a can from recycled aluminum uses 90% less energy than making a can from bauxite.
- Recycling just one aluminum can can save enough energy to power a TV for up to three hours.
Paper recycling facts
- Every tonne of paper we recycle saves:
- 19 trees4,000 kilowatt hours of energy30 kg of air pollution29,000 litres of water…the size of a small lake
- 2 barrels of oil from transportation of 19 trees
The tour was a reminder that we all have a role to play in waste management. It starts with doing our part to reduce waste, and then disposing of our waste responsibly. The success of our blue box and green bin programs has made a significant impact. It was also reassuring to learn that researchers are looking at ways to turn our waste into clean energy solutions.
The next public tours will be offered in October as part of Waste Management Month. Mark your calendars. I highly recommend it!
Which of these facts surprised you the most? Drop me a comment below and let me know.
The tour does seem like it was insightful, but that’s shocking the landfill processes over 500 pounds of waste per resident a year! It is great to hear that recycling does make a difference, and that’s really interesting they have hawks to keep seagulls away!
Thanks Karalee. Yes, that is a lot of waste per person. It’s a reminder of just how much we consume.
Education and awareness about climate change and sustainability starts with such Earth Day tours. It’s a good initiative that inspires children as well as adults about our responsibility to preserve our beautiful planet.
Hi Ranjana. Thanks for dropping by. You’re right. Education like this is so important to raising awareness.
How interesting that aluminum can be recycled forever and not grow weaker. Our local transfer station has a great visitor center and I take my kids to play there on rainy days. We learn some of the same things you’ve mentioned here but I’m so grateful for your full list. Love the animals at your landfill! Great post!
Thanks, Wynne. I think it’s great for kids to learn what happens to their waste and why recycling makes a difference. My 20-year-old came on the tour with me, even though she went when she was in school.
I would love to take a tour like this one locally! It sounds fascinating. I love that your landfill is collecting the methane gas and using it for power. That’s what our green waste program here does as well.
It really was a great learning experience. I remember my daughter telling me about it when she was in school and I really wished I had gone on that field trip. I finally got to do it almost 15 years later. I didn’t realize there was so much great work happening just a 5 minute drive from our house.
Sharing these facts it’s very important. In my office, close to the elevators, there is a poster saying that if we switch the lights off every day when leaving the building (it’s a 25 floors building) the saved energy would be used by 35 families. Small action big result! Well done Michelle!
Thanks Cristiana. It’s so true that the small things we take for granted can really add up. The landfill tour was fascinating because it really hit home that our actions make a difference.
That is fabulous news, I wonder if our waste management program in this city we are visiting is as good. You’d think on a busy fishing island, it would have to because of all the plastic waste from bottled water and beer cans on top of the stinky seafood waste!
It was a very informative and inspiring tour. When I told people I did it, most of them thought it was weird but I’d highly recommend it. But then, maybe I am weird… 😂
Nope! Just concerned about the environment 😊
It’s just that my husband worked his whole career for the public works dept in almost every department and he still doesn’t see that it makes any difference to recycle, he says it’s not as efficient as they make it sound. But one can always pray for change and improvement
I think success of these programs varies from place to place. We’re fortunate in our municipality to have high adoption and a dedicated waste management team that does a lot to educate the public. It’s one of the reasons I’m a bit concerned about the changes that are coming when the provincial government takes over recycling in Ontario. I’m just not convinced it will work as well as what we have now, although consistency from one municipality to another would help reduce the confusion. Time will tell.