Recyling! (in burlingon, ON) adapted from: …burlington’s waste diversion rate is currently 60% with a goal of 65% by 2016

Where do our recyclables go? They are taken to the “material recovery facility” which is operated by a private business. At the building: – Truck dumps the materials. –Small dozers push the materials onto a conveyor belt – Along the belt, people and machines sort the materials by type –These grouped materials get baled, like bales of hay. A bale of pop cans weighs over 1000 kg. –Companies then buy the bales to make new stuff (See below) Did you know? 1.Newspaper, paper towel and box board  If you recycle a stack of newspaper a metre tall, you actually save one tree from being cut down 2.Aluminium cans are recycled back into cans—for every pop can you recycle, you save three hours of electricity for your television set!

Why does the Region not accept Styrofoam and polystyrene in the Blue Box? The one place in the GTA that took styrofoam closed down. Halton only collected 8 tonnes (8,000 kg) of Styrofoam per year (8 tonnes of pop cans could be collected in a few days Styrofoam makes up only 0.01 per cent of materials in the blue box. The overall annual increase to the Blue Box program would be an estimated $219,400. Only $3,400 would be made up from the sale of polystyrene. Instead, the focus was redirected resources towards recycling and composting at apartment buildings

Why does the Region not accept all plastics in the Blue Box? 1.Not all plastics have a market for sale 2.Some plastics have issues with processing them at the recycling centre. For example: -plastic bags get caught in the machinery and conveyor belts -clear plastic containers can be made from different types of plastics and it can be difficult for the people sorting the material to determine what type of plastic it is just by looking at it.

Your task: Go to the following website to read about what’s acceptable in our blue bins in Burlington and what’s not acceptable: To help with our waste audit action plans: Make a poster about recycling for your assigned area of the school. Note: You don’t need to include all the items on the list of the website… focus on things you discovered by doing the waste audit. Things to keep in mind  The location your poster will be in the school  Make it “eye-catching”  Make sure it’s appropriate  Make it interesting (something you would want to read)