Buy Water Bottles Online

By SHARON LEM, SUN MEDIA

From the Toronto Sun - The next time you throw away your empty water bottle, you might want to shoot for the blue bin.

As few as 50% of water bottles Torontonians consume everyday are actually being recycled.

That means as many as 65 million empty plastic water bottles per year end up as garbage in a landfill waste site in Michigan.

These millions — and potentially billions — of plastic water bottles sit there swallowing up landfills with mounds of rubbish for thousands of years because that’s how long it takes to break down plastic water bottles.

Waste Bags 


“Anything that doesn’t go into yard waste bags, blue or green bins ends up in the landfill in Michigan,” said Geoff Rathbone, general manager of solid waste for the City of Toronto.

Statistics Canada says nearly one-third of all Canadian households are choosing to drink bottled water over tap water.

“We believe we recycled about 1,000 tonnes of plastic water bottles last year. There’s 65,000 bottles per tonne, so therefore we recycled 65 million water bottles in Toronto,” Rathbone said.

“We believe there are 100 to 125 million water bottles out there each year; we captured of the available water bottles out there an average of 50 to 65%,” he said.

“Water bottles make up half of 1% of everything we recycle,” Rathbone said. “We recycle 200,000 tonnes of materials each year including glass, cans, newsprint and plastic.”

The Sierra Club of Canada says the average energy cost to produce and ship one plastic bottle of water equals one-quarter bottle of oil, plus it creates greenhouse gas emissions and destroys the ozone layer.

“One of the reasons for the low recycling rate of water bottles is because a lot of water bottle consumption is done away from the home,” said Rod Muir, waste diversion campaigner for the Sierra Club of Canada.

Garbage Program

Rathbone said the single family homes are recycling 80% of water bottles, while multi-family homes like condos and apartment buildings and public space are recycling 30% of water bottles they consume.

The new “pay as you throw” garbage program beginning July 1, Rathbone says, will slash the amount of garbage thrown out by multi-family dwellings.

“Part of our job is to ensure everyone has access to recycling, Rathbone said, noting Toronto is the only major North American city to have litter bin access to recycling on the street.