During my summer co-op term with the City’s Office of Environment, I got a chance to visit the Edmonton Waste Management Centre (EWMC). I’d heard a lot about the facility and how amazing it is and wanted to see it for myself.
During our tour we visited the Materials Recovery Facility, the Integrated Processing & Transfer Facility, and the Global Electric & Electronic Processing (GEEP) facility.
Being a child of the 90s, electronics play an important role in my daily life so I was fascinated by the e-waste recycling facility. I always wondered where my electronic devices went when I dropped them off to be recycled. Do they get disassembled? Smelted? Or does someone fix them and sell them at a second-hand store?
I found the answer, or at least part of it.
The first thing our tour group saw was the pile of electronics outside of the centre; then just a few metres to the right of that was the neatly organized bundles of scrap metal with various items such as side panels for computers.
Inside GEEP, workers were disassembling various electronic devices and removing things like tubes from TVs. Metals are sorted into different containers, such as aluminum and steel, to eventually be recycled into other products. This prevents materials from ending up in a landfill, where they could contaminate the soil and groundwater and take up a lot of space.
It is great to see the EWMC recycle a variety of materials. By the end of the decade, their goal is to divert 90 per cent of waste away from the landfill site, most going to recycling or the composter and another portion being converted to bio-fuel.
As time passes, electronic products can break down or technology advances and newer and better products come onto the market. Because new products are often fancier and more appealing, old items often get replaced sooner than required and end up as waste.
Our tour group was told that some of the electronics that end up in GEEP still work. So as a consumer, consider extending the life of a product before it goes into the recycling process.
While recycling is a huge leap ahead of landfilling, we must be aware of the amount of energy it takes to move materials to a facility and to reprocess them into new products. In order to truly reduce our environmental footprint, we need to purchase long-lasting, durable goods that we truly need, and try to extend the life of our products. By doing that, not only will you save money by switching less often, you will reduce your environmental footprint by sending fewer items into the recycling process.
If you do have an urge to buy the latest and shiniest electronic device, sell your old device online or through second-hand shopping sites, or donate it. Think of the recycling centre as the last option.
Waste Reduction Week (WRW) will again be celebrated across Canada from October 15 to 21, 2012. It’s a great opportunity to reconsider our consumer habits and to develop new habits that have us practicing the 3Rs in the correct order: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Learn more at www.wrwcanada.com and www.recycle.ab.ca/wrw. During WRW, the City will be recognizing small businesses that are taking action to reduce their environmental footprint. The Small Business Eco Challenge awards will occur on October 18 at the Business Link downtown.
The tour was a terrific reminder of how much waste we generate on a weekly, or even a daily basis, across the city. It was also an amazing example of how Edmonton has embraced waste as, not a problem to be swept under the ground, but a valuable resource that needs careful separation and management.
If you’re interested in a tour of the Edmonton Waste Management Center, visit www.edmonton.ca/ewmc or call 780-496-6879.