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What Does This Mean?
Why Is This Important?
How Are We Doing?
Taking Responsibility
- What You Can Do
We Must All Be
Accountable – Improving Waste Management - Find Out More
What Does This Mean?
The capture rate is
the percentage of recyclables that are collected
for recycling divided by the total amount of
recyclables that are generated. Recyclable
materials that are not ‘captured’ are put in the
garbage and sent to landfill. A higher capture
rate means we are doing better at recycling
instead of throwing recyclables into the
garbage. Information about capture rate and
waste composition is obtained from waste audits.
The City of London has conducted several waste
audits to learn about capture rates of different
recyclable materials and waste composition. Data
from other communities is also valuable in
understanding what is currently not being
captured and how performance can be improved.
Why Is This Important?
The Province as set a goal for
the province to divert 60% of all residential
waste from landfill. To achieve this goal, a
variety of waste diversion programs (including
recycling) have been implemented to keep
materials out of the landfill. By tracking the
capture rate of recyclable materials, we can
determine whether all potential recyclable
materials are being diverted from the landfill
and identify opportunities for residents to make
maximize use of recycling programs. Waste audits
can also tell us detailed information about
individual capture rates for different
materials. We know for example, that newspaper
has a higher capture rate than aluminum cans.
This information can help to tailor information
campaigns to target specific materials. Capture
rate of recyclables is one component of the
overall diversion rate.
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How Are We Doing?
æ
Getting Better
The performance trend shows a
steady increase in capture of Blue Box
recyclables at single family homes. Presently it
is estimated that approximately 60% of Blue Box
recyclables are captured.
While most Londoners are participating in the
curbside recycling program, there remains a
significant amount of recyclable materials that
are still being landfilled. See
Think Outside The Can, Recycle More.
Since multi-residential recycling was
implemented, the capture rate has increased over
time.
Capture rate is considerably
lower than for single-family. In 2005 it is
estimated that just over 25% of all Blue Box
recyclables were captured in the
multi-residential recycling program. A very
large percentage of recyclable materials are
still being put in the garbage. There is a great
opportunity to improve the capture rate for
multi-family recycling programs.
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Taking Responsibility – What You Can Do
There are many things households
can do to capture more recyclable materials:
• Check London’s list of program recyclables to
see what your family is currently not recycling
and start recycling it.
• Set up your recycling containers in a
convenient place to make it easy for everyone in
your household to recycle. If you live in a
multi-residential building, work with the other
tenants and the property manager to make
recycling easy to do and a team effort.
• Don’t let any get away. If you are recycling
make sure that none of the recyclables end up in
the garbage.
• Bring recyclable cans and bottles home from
activities to recycle.
• Crush cans and flatten boxes to make more room
in your recycling container so there is space
for all your recyclables.
• If you want to recycle on days other than your
regular collection day, drop recyclables off at
one of three depots within the City. More
information on the locations, hours and
materials accepted at depots located across the
city can be found in the
Waste Reduction and
Conservation Calendar.
We Must All Be
Accountable – Improving Waste Management -
Find Out More
We all have opportunities to
capture more recyclables at home, work and while
out and about. We need to be disciplined enough
to find out what they are and to start doing
them.
We need to educate ourselves on the
City’s recycling programs and be disciplined
to maximize recycling.
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