Oil Sands

This week is Waste Reduction Week across Canada and here in Alberta, we’re encouraging Albertans to get into the habit of waste-free living.

It doesn’t get any more practical or straightforward than recycling your empty beverage containers. Fortunately, Albertans are embracing beverage container recycling like never before. The province now has an 82.6 per cent return rate an all-time high.

Of course, there are more benefits to recycling your empties than simply keeping pop, juice, alcohol, and milk containers out of provincial dumps every single recycled container makes a difference:

Enough energy is saved by recycling one aluminum can to run a TV set for three hours or to light one 100 watt bulb for 20 hours.

You can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one new one.

Five recycled 2-litre plastic bottles make enough fibrefill to stuff a ski jacket.

For more ideas on how to reduce waste and become more environmentally friendly all year long, visit www.onesimpleact.alberta.ca

-Trevor Gemmell, Alberta Environment Communications