Facts

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Forever Plastic

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43:57 minutes

 

• According to Stats Canada, in 2006 Canadians produced over 1000 kg of waste per person, up 8% from 2004. Of this total 835 kg went to landfills or was incinerated while 237 kg was diverted from landfill.
• The majority of the waste (66 per cent) was generated from industry and business, with the other one-third from homes. Waste from residential sources increased 3% to 9.2 million tonnes in 2006, while the amount of non-residential waste rose 11% to 18 million tonnes.
• Under 7% of discarded plastic is currently recycled in the U.S. Figures for Canada are not collected.
• In the UK, less than 10 per cent of the nearly three million tons of plastic waste, is recycled -- more than half of which comes from packaging.
• PET soft drink bottles were the first plastics accepted into blue box programmes in the late 1980s, early 1990s in Ontario.
• According to a 2008 Neilson survey, wasteful food packaging is among the fastest-growing environmental concerns for shoppers worldwide.
The real cost of a bottle of water is enormous.
• In 1960 packaging accounted for nearly 10% of total plastic production in the U.S. By 2008 that total is 34%.
• In 2006, Canadians consumed 2.1 billion litres of bottled water, Americans 31 billion litres. The Pacific Institute in California estimates that the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil were needed to produce these plastic bottles. Their manufacture created more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 and twice the amount of water in the bottle is required in the production process. More energy is needed to fill the bottles with water, move it by truck, train, ship or air to grocery stores and then recover for recycling.
• Post consumer product packaging and printed paper makes up one quarter of the waste that municipalities manage each year and costs each property taxpayer about $55 annually. In total, post-consumer waste costs municipalities about $234 million annually.
• A toothbrush is composed of 11 cubic centimetres of plastic (not counting the brush). If 27 million people across Canada throw away three toothbrushes this year, this would create the equivalent of a plastic rope the thickness of your little finger that stretched all the way from Toronto to Tokyo.
  Credit: Cameron Smith "Let growth cater to need, not want" February 02, 2008 - Toronto Star