My Garbage Scorecard: How Much is Too Much?
Pondering Garbage Day in Ontario
The Statistics
According to various government websites, the average Canadian generates about 850 kg of trash per year, or roughly 2.3 kg per person per day.
To provide a visual, a rhinoceros, or a polar bear, or a bison weigh about 850 kg.
Most waste management sites report that the average Canadian household of four fills a 95 gallon bin in 1-2 weeks.
Assessing where one fits on this scale is difficult because the measurement units are often inconsistent. Statistics are provided variously in gallons (presumably Imperial, not American), litres, kilograms, or metric tonnes. Moreover, weight and volume are not easily converted from one to another, especially for mixed content. The same volume of coffee grounds converted to kg would be very different from that of (non-recyclable) plastic.
Today is Garbage Day
Every other week I can stroll down my street and see what is typical.
Our region provides a choice of three garbage containers which are picked up every two weeks:
- A “small” 120-litre (32-gallon) bin, which measures 97x56x51 cm (38x22x20 in)
- A “medium” 240-litre (64-gallon) bin, which measures 112x71x64 cm (44x28x25 in)
- A “large” 360-litre or (95-gallon) bin, which measures 119x89x69 cm (47x35x27 in)
A relatively substantial adult could fit into the “large” bin without any difficulty, aside from the climb to get inside.
My neighbourhood consists primarily of two or four-person households; mine is the former.
Every other week, at the bottom of each driveway, one sees the “large” person-sized garbage bin (or the equally sized recycle bin — largely a happy fantasy, but let me not digress). Typically, the lids cannot even be closed because the bins are overflowing.
Me? Well, we put out slightly less than half of a “small” bin every other week. This would apply both to garbage and to recycling.
Let’s do a quick calculation
If the “average” household produces 2.3 kg (5.07 lbs) of garbage per person per day, amounting to 850 kg (1873.93 lbs) per person-year, and if that average is representative of my street (which it seems to be) then our household only produces about 212 kg (467.38 lbs) per person-year.
That is 638 kg (1406.55 lbs) less waste each year, roughly the equivalent of an African lion rather than a rhinoceros.
Over a span of ten years, that would be 6,380 kg (14065.49 lbs) of waste materials not produced (with all the inputs and associated industrial waste). Also, consider the amount of fuel needed to both move the waste into the shops and then to cart it to a landfill. And think of the landfill itself.
Then double those numbers because there are two of us in our home. That amounts to a reduction of about 1,275 kg (2,810.89 lbs) per year, or 12,750 kg (28,108.90 lbs) over ten years, for our household of two.
An African bush elephant’s worth of difference.
Am I merely virtue signalling? Perhaps partially, but what I really want to convey is that it is absolutely possible to do better. And I will continue to do better where I can.
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