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

It’s Time For a New Paradigm in Textiles

by Textile Waste Diversion Inc.

shutterstock_97040714At home and abroad, the news is full of horror stories about the textile industry. From the toxicity of raw production, to wasted prime farmland for fibres, to horrible working conditions in places like Bangladesh, it’s a never ending negative news cycle. Locally, textile end-of-life gets a bad rap, with nasty turf wars and corruption in used clothing collections. Frankly, we are tired of it….and we are not alone.

The good news is, local consumers are starting to ask good questions, demanding straight answers and are understanding that the human cost associated with lower prices at the till are just not worth it.

We are encouraged by the amount of phone calls and emails we receive by everyday people wanting to know more about textile recycling, and how exactly their donations are used to support charities.

Our competitors are getting the same questions, and we believe that the industry is eager to offer straight answers and to improve where possible.

We are currently working with a consultant to bring other industry leaders on board to develop a mechanism that helps us fully record and share the textile end-of-life process with consumers. Integral participants are eager to ‘walk the walk’ together.

It is true that in Ontario, the used clothing collection sector is rife with unfair competition practices, and is plagued with pirate organizations that divert donations away from real registered charities doing good work.

We believed that municipal regulations would eradicate this scourge, but we found that across the province, a lack of enforcement made the new bylaws practically redundant. We are now calling on Queen’s Park to step in.

Our mandate is to set a new standard for the industry, and 2020 will come with an exciting announcement that will do much to make this industry more transparent and accountable. We are proud to be the ones to lead the way in this exciting new provincial development.

Our goal for 2020 is to help Ontario drastically increase its textile waste diversion rate with an assertive growth strategy. We hope to educate Ontario property managers about the community building block potential in charity textile recycling.

We are proud to help manage the textile waste stream of the province, but we can’t do it efficiently without the support of property managers across the province willing to host charity bins. We hope that by elevating operating standards in a way that makes it easy for the public to discern between integral operators and pirates, will make property owners feel more confident in hosting a bin. Hosting a bin is a public service to your community. Our goal in 2020 is to make it easy for you to choose an integral company to support.

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.