Thanks to your support in 2020, we were able to donate $125,000 to Canadian registered charities.

Welcome To Waste Reduction Week!

AtlasCutout_EN_2011Every year, during the 3rd week of October, municipalities and businesses across Canada rally around the concept of waste reduction through events and awareness campaigns geared to inspiring people everywhere to embrace greener, more sustainable living.

Waste reduction efforts like recycling not only decrease pollution and greenhouse gasses, but they also reduce landfills, and create jobs that energize the economy.

Textile recycling in particular has a tremendously positive environmental impact. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that textile recycling is equivalent to taking 1 million cars off the road. In Europe, they are in the process of making the banning of textiles from landfills a priority.

In Canada, less than 24% of textiles are recycled. Most of it is dumped in landfills where it resists decomposition, grows flammable mould, and contaminates surrounding air and groundwater. This is especially alarming considering that according the The Recycling Council Of Ontario, the average Canadian uses as much material in the first 6 months of their life as someone in the developing world will use in their entire life.

Developing nations depend on our used clothing, as do Canadian charities that fundraise through used clothing collection. Inspired by the OWMA’s Re-Think Waste Report, TWD Inc. is learning about new green technology that will enable us to find value-added uses for even the most unusable of our textile waste.

TWD shares its knowledge and expertise with the registered charities it supports, so they can maximize their fundraising potential through recycling.

The charities we serve see most demand for help during the winter months, when Canadians in need find it more challenging to find warm clothes or food. We thought a province-wide contest would be the perfect way to not only raise awareness, but help stock up the Canadian Community Support Foundation for the winter.

All schools in Southern Ontario, from K-12 to universities are invited to enter the contest. The school that collects the most textile waste (by student population) by December 1, 2020 will win $600 to put towards a green initiative.

Textiles Accepted: clothing, jackets, coats, boots, shoes, belts, purses, linens and drapery in any condition as long as it’s clean, dry and bagged.

Why Do a Clothing Drive?

The average garbage bag of clothes weighs 25 pounds.

If 2020 students in Southern Ontario brought in just one bag of clothing, that would be 25, 000 pounds of clothes!

Impact: Industry estimates say that every pound of textiles reused/recycled saves 717 litres of water compared to making it from raw material. 25,000 lbs would equal a savings of 17,925,000 litres of water!

You’ll also be supporting the less fortunate in your community by providing them with access to warm clothing this winter.

C’mon students, lets show Southern Ontario how it’s done!

To enter the contest, download, complete and email the registration form here.

For more information on Waste Reduction Week, visit: http://www.wrwcanada.com/

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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.