Where do recyclables go?

Where is Recyclable Material taken?

Ever Green operates its own recycling facility where material that we collect off the curb is offloaded, sorted, baled and shipped to end users for reuse.

 

Paper & Cardboard

 

In some cases, the paper is used directly in making building products, such as roofing shingles, in other cases it is soaked in a bath where print dyes can be removed and becomes a “pulp slurry”.  This slurry is then treated to increase binding and run through heavy presses to produce industrial stock grade paper.  This stock can then be further refined to produce various grades of paper.

 

By Recycling 1 ton of paper you save:
· 17 trees
· 6953 gallons of water
· 463 gallons of oil
· 587 pounds of air pollution
· 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space
· 4077 Kilowatt hours of energy

Source: Weyerhauser info

 

Plastics

 

Plastics are separated by grade and colouring (clear or coloured), melted and then extruded into plastic beads.  These beads are shipped to markets around the world where they are used in molds or are further extruded to produce new plastic products.  Currently, grades #1 and #2 are most easily recycled, however, other plastic products such as hard plastics used in toys, film, small wrappers and styrofoam are sometimes difficult to classify and therefore must be put in landfill.  Plastic is the only recyclable material that is not always recycled because of the many grades used and the difficulty in distinguishing them.  Many government bodies have proposed legislation to solve this problem by regulating what grade of plastic can be used for particular products similar to legislation in the United States.  Once such legislation is in place, plastic recycling can become much more efficient.

 

Plastic is produced from petroleum products such as oil.  Therefore, anytime plastic can be re-used it directly reduces our consumption of petroleum products and the many harmful emissions that they produce.

 

Food Cans and Glass Jars

 

Unlike plastics, these materials are easy to categorize and are therefore recycled.  Glass is crushed into smaller granules and shipped to manufacturing plants where it is melted and poured back through molds to produce more glass products.  The process for recycling tin cans is much the same although rather than being crushed, the cans are shredded before being pressed into dense cubes.  At manufacturing plants, they are again melted before being pressed into sheets and “folded” into cans or other metal products.

 

Producing aluminum from scrap instead of bauxite cuts energy use and air pollution by 95 percent!

 

In 1993, in the United States, the energy saved by recycling aluminium cans alone was enough to light a city the size of Pittsburgh for 6 years.  Of course, the population of Canada is much smaller than that of the US, but food and pop can recycling is no less important.