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The Benefits of Clothing Donation Bins in Your Community

shutterstock_75687625At TWD Inc, we think used clothing donation bins are beautiful, because we know exactly what they are providing for local communities. Lately there has been some media around the aesthetics of the bins when they appear in a general area.

When we see an area with several bins, we see a sustainable community.

It is common knowledge that our landfills will be at capacity in 20 years. We know it is possible to divert and recycle all sorts of waste, because there are countries like Sweden that have actually run out of garbage, and now import it from Norway. Waste processing has now become a major industry in Sweden. Products are recycled into new things or used to generate energy. Why not in Canada, or Ontario?

According to From Waste to Worth: The Role of Waste Diversion in the Green Economy Minister’s Report on the Review of Ontario’s Waste Diversion Act 2020:

“Ontarians generate more than 12 million tonnes of waste per year, almost a tonne per person. Every year, almost 80 per cent of this waste is disposed of. Of this, we send about 4 million tonnes of waste (about 30 per cent) outside this province. The remaining 6 million tonnes (about 50 per cent) is disposed of in Ontario — the vast majority in landfills, with less than two per cent managed in an energy-from-waste facility. Currently, only 22 per cent of Ontario’s waste is being diverted from disposal. We are better with our home-generated waste, diverting about 39 per cent. But at our places of work and play, we only divert about 12 per cent, and that rate appears to be dropping instead of going up.”

Used clothing collection falls under the realm of residential recycling for the most part, and a 39% waste diversion rate in that area is a decent start. Textiles only represent about 5% of landfill volume in Canada and so has been the least of our green-tech priorities. The European Union believes the opposite, and has supported green-tech advancements in textile recycling that has allowed them to ban textiles from landfills by 2020.

Why the urgency?

It’s totally unnecessary to put textile waste in landfills, because 98% of it is completely recyclable. It’s an easy 5% to get rid of.

Unlike Canada that has no market for unsalvageable textile waste, Europe finds exciting uses for it and have created a whole other market, helping to energize the economy and make the landfill ban ‘worth it’ for the private sector.

Textiles in landfills aren’t a lot of the volume, but because even natural fibres can take a century to decompose, their volume increases over time cumulatively.

Textiles in landfills are highly toxic polluting the air and groundwater. Some are also prone to mould in landfills that is highly flammable and self igniting.

It takes way less energy and fewer chemicals to recycle a piece of fabric into new fabric than it does to make fabric from scratch. This also reduces the need for natural fibre producing farms, making room for farms to produce food in a time of global food insecurity, much of it due to loss of farms due to urban sprawl.

According To OntarioFarmlandTrust.ca:

“Ontario lost at least 600,000 acres of farmland between 2020 and 2020. This includes 18% of Ontario’s Class 1 farmland. It can take thousands of years to produce one centimetre of the topsoil needed for agricultural production. For this reason, Ontario’s farmland should be seen as a limited natural resource, to be managed and protected…

The Ontario farm and food processing sector generates over $30 billion in sales – more than 35 percent of Canada’s Agri-Food sector gross domestic product – and employs 700,000 people.”

The OWMA ReThink Waste Report

Waste diversion industries employ 7 direct full time and 15 indirect jobs per 2020 tonnes collected. Here at TWD Inc., we are projecting to divert 30 million pounds of textiles and 2 million pounds of other recyclables from landfills in 2020 alone! While other companies are laying off, our family is growing!

When you see a cluster of new bins in your area, visualize the processing facility that just got rented locally, the fuel purchased, the vehicle bought and continually maintained locally, the bins made, signs printed, insurance bought, licences paid. All that creates LOCAL jobs.

When you see those bins pop up visualize the shrinking landfills and the money municipalities are saving by having this waste diverted by the private sector.

The unique thing about textile recycling as that many recyclers partner up with great charities turning an environmental service into a community driven social enterprise.

There are some communities that really fight the influx of used clothing donation bins. We believe that if the general public knew exactly the benefits of the textile recycling industry, everyone would be begging for a bin. With so many great charities using textile recycling as a stable form of fundraising, property managers have a wide variety of great causes to support.

By permitting a bin on your property, you are supporting your local community, as well as the charity that benefits.

20200

Packaging and trash

Out of every $10 spent buying things, $1 (10%) goes for packaging that is thrown away. Packaging represents about 65% of household trash.

 

Save the trees

If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year.

 

In the bin!

Used aluminum beverage cans are the most recycled item in the U.S., but other types of aluminum, such as siding, gutters, car components, storm window frames, and lawn furniture can also be recycled.

 

Kiss this!

An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover over 50 acres of space -- that's almost 40 football fields. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.

Packaging at the dump

About one-third of an average garbage dump is made up of packaging material!

Glass skyscrapers?

Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of these jars are recyclable!

Plastic bottles by the hour

Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!

The Sunday paper

To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.

The aluminum recycling loop

A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can in as little as 60 days. That's closed loop recycling at its finest!

 

What gets recycled in Canada?

By weight, organics comprise the largest portion, accounting for 22% of recycled materials from all sources, followed by newsprint (17%) and cardboard and boxboard (17%).

Recycling by the Province

While on the rise overall, recycling varies quite widely from province to province. Ontario and Quebec recycle the largest quantities of materials, but the amounts of material recycled per person and the recycling rate are higher in Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

Canadian vs. American residential waste

Canadians produced 366 kg per person of residential waste in 2020; by 2020, this figure had increased to 418 kg per person. By way of comparison, residential waste production by our neighbours in the United States was 440 kg per person in 2020.

   

Canadian waste

In 2020, Canadian households produced 13.4 million tonnes of waste. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of this waste was sent for disposal, according to Statistics Canada’s 2020 Waste Management Survey, while the rest was recycled.

A great reason to recycle!

Landfills produce approximately 25% of Canada’s methane emissions (methane is a powerful greenhouse gas). Recycling, including textile recycling, can help reduce the amount of waste entering landfills and help conserve natural resources.

How much water do ice caps and glaciers hold?

The amount of water locked up in ice and snow is only about 1.7 percent of all water on Earth, but the majority of total freshwater on Earth, about 68.7%, is held in ice caps and glaciers.

How much recyclable material gets thrown away?

Paper is the number one recyclable material that we throw away. For every 100 pounds of trash we throw away, 35 pounds is paper. Americans throw away 25 billion Styrofoam coffee cups every year, 40 billion soft drink cans and bottles every year, and 38 billion plastic bags. Placed end to end, they would reach to the moon and back hundreds of times.

 

How much household waste can be recycled?

Over 80% of typical household waste - including food scraps, yard waste, paper, cardboard, cans, and bottles - can be recycled, reused, or composted.

How much carbon dioxide can a car emit?

On average, a car produces about 170g CO2 per kilometer. If your car travels 2020 kilometers per month, it produces about 340 kilograms CO2 - that's a lot of carbon dioxide!

How much harm can one styrofoam cup do?

A styrofoam cup contains one billion billion CFC molecules - a class of chemical compounds that deplete ozone. Once a CFC molecule reaches the ozone layer, it can take over 100 years before it breaks up and becomes harmless!

How many trees are cut down each year?

In 2020 statistics, primary forest area was reduced globally by 60,000 square km per year (about the size of Ireland). While it's impossible to get an exact count, at a rate of 50K to 100K trees per square km, this equates to 3 to 6 billion trees per year.

Worldwide Metals Production

Between 2020 and 2020, worldwide metals production grew sixfold, oil consumption eightfold, and natural gas consumption 14-fold. In total, 60 billion tons of resources are now extracted annually—about 50% more than just 30 years ago. Today the average European uses 43 kilograms of resources daily, and the average American uses 88 kilograms.