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Archive for Household Waste Generation

This National Pizza Day Don’t Forget that Pizza Boxes are Recyclable in Canada

It is National Pizza Day on February 9, 2022, and the Paper and Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC) wants to celebrate by reminding you that pizza boxes are recyclable in Canada! You thought we were going to say eat pizza, right? You can do that, too, but don’t forget to recycle that box once you’re done!

Pizza boxes are normally made from corrugated board, and in Canada, corrugated board is made mostly from recycled content. So, once that empty and clean pizza box is placed in the recycling bin – where it is then collected, sent for processing, baled, and sold – that recycled material then makes its way back to our members’ paper packaging mills, where it will get remade into a new pizza box, or another type of paper-based packaging.

That recycled pizza box represents an important slice of the Canadian paper packaging industry’s circular economy. Recycled content keeps raw materials flowing longer, reducing the need to extract virgin materials. And the average recycled content for domestic shipments of containerboard – which is used to make corrugated board – is close to 87%, based on PPEC’s 2020 Recycled Content Survey.

In general, paper can be recycled up to seven times, while corrugated box fibres can be used up to ten times, to make new boxes and other paper-based packaging products. We already thought those numbers were quite good, but a new study from Graz University of Technology in Austria found that fibre-based packaging material can be recycled at least 25 times, without losing mechanical or structural integrity, suggesting that paper and board fibres are even more durable than previously thought.

Thanks to the important act of recycling, it’s likely that your pizza box has had multiple lives, and we want that to continue. But unfortunately, there has been some confusion over the years when it comes to their recyclability.

National Pizza Day - three images of Pizza boxes Recyclable and Compostable

In the past, it has been suggested that pizza boxes should not be placed in blue box recycling bins because of the grease and cheese scraps. But that’s not true. If you remove the food scraps (eat those crusts!) and any plastic (like that three-pronged pizza saver which is meant to prevent the box top from sagging), that corrugated pizza box is recyclable in Canada.

And when it gets to the recycling mill, the empty pizza box goes into a pulper – which is like a big washing machine – where any non-paper materials are removed through a series of cleaning and screening processes. The paper fibres are then pumped onto a fast-moving screen to form paper or board. The rest of the process involves removing the moisture out of the paper or board so that it can be wound onto big rolls or cut into sheets, which are then shipped to a converter or a box plant, where it is remade into new paper-based packaging.

But what about the greasy residue you sometimes see on a pizza box? Well, in a typical mill’s recycling process, the temperature of the paper sheet reaches up to 240 degrees Fahrenheit – well above 100 degrees Celsius, the boiling point of water and the temperature required for sterilisation – which gets rid of the grease. Though there is not much grease to begin with, as the average grease content of a pizza box found in the recycling stream is approximately 1-2% by weight level, according to WestRock’s Incorporation of Post-Consumer Pizza Boxes in the Recovered Fiber Stream Study.

Paper-packaging is a successful recycling story in Canada and pizza boxes are no exception.

Not only do 96% of Canadians have access to recycling for corrugated boxes, determined through an independent third-party study commissioned by PPEC, but Canadians actively do their part by recycling. PPEC has estimated a national recovery rate for corrugated boxes of at least 85%, with recycling even higher in certain provinces, such as Ontario’s Blue Box program, which has a 98% recovery rate for corrugated.

However, it should be noted that for some Canadian communities, composting paper packaging (including pizza boxes) may be more convenient, such as in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, who are hundreds of kilometres from the nearest packaging recycling mill.

Happy National Pizza Day from PPEC, and don’t forget to recycle your empty pizza boxes so they can be recycled into new pizza boxes!

Rachel Kagan

Executive Director Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC)

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Statistics Canada’s New Waste Management Survey Results: Paper Represents 36% of Diversion

Statistics Canada released the results of its biennial Waste Management Industry Survey: Business and Government Sector, containing waste diversion data for 2018.

The new data shows that Canadian households and businesses diverted 9,817,607 tonnes of waste in 2018, up 5.8% from 2016.

Of the total amount diverted, 3,519,689 tonnes were paper fibres (which includes newsprint, cardboard and boxboard, and mixed paper), representing 36% of the total amount diverted in 2018.

While paper diversion represents the majority of materials diverted from landfill in Canada, compared to previous years Statistics Canada data, paper diversion has been trending slightly down year over year since 2014.

The next leading category of materials diverted in Canada for 2018 was organics with 29% of the total share of diversion.

Digging deeper into paper diversion, of the 3.5M total tonnes diverted in Canada in 2018, about 44% was diverted through residential sources (ie. Blue Box recycling programs), while the remaining 56% was diverted through non-residential sources (ie. Industrial Commercial and Institutional collection).

Statistics Canada reported that Saskatchewan had the highest rate of residential paper fibre recycling among the provinces, at almost 70%, or 38,000 tonnes of its total 57,000 tonnes of paper recycling.

Below is a full breakdown of sources of paper diversion by province, for both residential and non-residential (IC&I) diversion. Of note, British Columbia had the highest IC&I paper fibre diversion rate at 78% (433,609 tonnes of its total 553,596 tonnes of diverted paper materials); while Ontario had the largest share of paper diversion by tonnage through both IC&I (736,790 tonnes) and residential (581,930 tonnes) sources.

Background on the Statistics Canada Data

Statistics Canada’s Waste Management Industry Survey of the business and government sectors is conducted every two years.

The 2018 results were released on March 8, 2021.

Some of the data contained in this blog are from Waste materials diverted, by type and by source (Table: 38-10-0138-01) which includes the following footnote:

This information covers only those companies and local waste management organizations that reported non-hazardous recyclable material preparation activities and refers only to that material entering the waste stream and does not cover any waste that may be managed on-site by a company or household. Additionally, these data do not include those materials transported by the generator directly to secondary processors, such as pulp and paper mills, while bypassing entirely any firm or local government involved in waste management activities.

Rachel Kagan

Executive Director Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC)

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Almost 80,000 more tonnes of plastic in Ontario homes than 10 years ago

An analysis of the last 10 years of data on Blue Box-type materials generated by Ontario households shows a 34% increase in the amount of plastic packaging ending up in the home. And most of it (70%) did not get sent on for recycling.

The major increase is in the catch-all category of “other” plastics, things like yoghurt containers, hand cream tubes, margarine tubs and lids, blister packaging for toys and batteries, egg cartons, and laundry detergent pails. The amount of “other” plastics in the home increased by 67% between 2010 and 2019. There have also been big increases in the tonnages of PET drink bottles (up 54%) and mostly non-recycled plastic laminants (up 30%). Other materials to register significant increases over the period are aseptic cartons (up 46%), boxboard cartons (up 29%) and coloured glass (up 25%).

Increase in plastic packaging

What is missing from Ontario homes compared to 10 years ago is a lot of paper, almost 200,000 tonnes of it. Most of this is newspapers no longer being published (generation is down 35%), but telephone directories, magazines and catalogues, and printing and writing paper have also taken a big hit (down 87%, 51%, and 23% respectively).

These changes in what Blue Box materials end up in the home impact how much is recovered for recycling (Ontario’s Blue Box recovery rate has dipped below the provincial target of 60% for the first time since 2005); and how much the recycling system costs. For example, most paper packaging is recyclable and relatively cheap to recover. Plastics packaging, on the other hand, is currently not widely recycled at all (only 31% in 2019 compared to paper’s 68%) and is two and a half times more expensive to recycle. But that subject deserves a blog all by itself!

Newspapers’ big fall, but more packaging in Ontario households

While the collective weight of Blue Box materials generated by Ontario households has not changed much over the last 16 years (down 12%), the type of material that ends up there certainly has.

Far fewer newspapers, for starters. Almost 162,000 tonnes fewer, according to a PPEC comparison of Stewardship Ontario generation data between 2003 and 2018.

Newspapers’ Net Change in Generated Tonnes

Magazines and catalogues have also taken a hit (49,000 tonnes less) together with printing and writing paper (down 39,000 tonnes). Telephone directories, not surprisingly, are on the way out. Overall, the generation of printed paper that ends up in Ontario homes has fallen some 41% over the period, mainly because of inroads made by electronic or digital competition. Millennials (and there are many more of them these days) are not known as great newspaper readers.

Counterbalancing these losses are big tonnage gains in both plastic and paper packaging: some 93,000 more tonnes of plastic (mostly the grab-bag of “Other Plastics” and PET bottles); and 93,000 more tonnes of paper (mainly corrugated boxes and boxboard cartons). The spread of E-commerce delivery is expected to boost residential corrugated box tonnages even more in future years.

The table shows the net change in tonnages of some of the materials generated by Ontario households between 2003 and 2018 (with the losing categories highlighted in yellow) while the pie-charts give a graphic comparison by material group.

Newspapers’ charts

Source: PPEC Analysis of Stewardship Ontario generation data 2003 – 2018

Fewer newspapers but more packaging in Ontario households

While the collective weight of Blue Box materials generated by Ontario households has not changed much over the last 15 years, the type of material that ends up there certainly has.

Far fewer newspapers, for starters. Almost 136,000 tonnes fewer, according to a PPEC comparison of Stewardship Ontario generation data between 2003 and 2017.

Magazines and catalogues have also taken a hit (41,000 tonnes less) together with printing and writing paper (down 13,000 tonnes). Telephone directories, not surprisingly, are on the way out. Overall, the generation of printed paper that ends up in Ontario homes has fallen some 35% over the period, mainly because of inroads made by electronic or digital competition. Millennials (and there are many more of them these days) are not known as great newspaper readers.

Counterbalancing these losses are big tonnage gains in both plastic and paper packaging: some 99,000 more tonnes of plastic (mostly the grab-bag of “Other Plastics” and PET bottles); and 89,000 more tonnes of paper (mainly corrugated boxes and boxboard cartons). The spread of E-commerce delivery is expected to boost residential corrugated box tonnages even more in future years.

The table shows the net change in tonnages of some of the materials generated by Ontario households between 2003 and 2017 (with the losing categories highlighted in yellow) while the pie-charts give a graphic comparison by material group.

Household Generation 2003 & 2017

Source: PPEC Analysis of Stewardship Ontario generation data 2003 – 2017