3 things that shouldn’t be going into landfills
BY Shelley Kozlowski
Photography by Frank Wright
You’re vigilant with your blue bin, you donate clothes, you even posted “No Flyers, Please” on your mailbox. Yet, despite your best efforts, Canada still produces more than 20 million tonnes of waste per year. The credo of “reduce, reuse and recycle” is not enough; it’s time for manufacturers to shoulder some responsibility, to recover and repurpose goods after their useful life. Here are three things that shouldn’t be going into landfills at all:
1. Carpet
With the right equipment, granny’s used shag breaks down to materials used for making auto parts, plastic lumber, sound barriers, even other carpet. Thanks to DIY decorating and house-flipping TV shows, billions of Canadian dollars flow into decorating centres, with updated flooring a homeowner’s priority. So what happens to the old stuff underfoot? Right now, it heads straight to the landfill.
Number of pounds of carpet recycled in the U.S. in 2005: 194 million.
Number of pounds of carpet recycled in Canada: zero.
2. Computer components
Whatever Microsoft makes, it can also reshape.
In 2005, an estimated 71,652 tonnes of IT equipment migrated to landfill sites, releasing lead, mercury and cadmium contaminates into the environment. Managing e-waste is a growing problem. The federal government says it supports the idea of a producer responsibility program to see obsolete equipment returned to the manufacturer to be reused and recycled, but has not backed this up with legislation.
3. Packaging
It seems that every electronic gadget comes wrapped in an impenetrable sheath of packaging. Although Canada doesn’t yet track the amount of packaging in the waste recovery system, the United Kingdom recognizes the impact as serious enough to adhere to a directive to recover 60 percent of packaging waste by 2008. Manufacturers who produce more than 50 tonnes annually must buy waste recovery notes from recycling plants as evidence that their materials are being recycled. Failure to comply results in fines; recently, one manufacturer was ordered to cough up £50,000 for its lax recovery standards. Canada would be wise to follow the U.K.’s lead.
