Just a bunch of interesting facts I've come across recently...
- The Cache Creek Landfill (where Metro Vancouver's waste is taken) produces enough methane (biogas) that it could power all the trucks that ship our garbage there. Right now, though, that gas is simply burned off.
- All the Waste-to-energy plants (incinerators) in Sweden combined release fewer dioxins into the air than a single fireworks show at the Celebration of Light here in Vancouver. We have at least four of those shows a year, and yet people are worried about the emissions from additional W2E plants.
- In the US alone, in the past 30 years, over 1 trillion aluminum cans have been thrown into landfills - that aluminum is worth over $20 billion!
- North Americans have double the "ecological footprint" of Europeans and 7 times the average of Asians and Africans.
- The population of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley (approx. 2 million people) depends on an area equivalent to 19 times that which is within our boundaries for our food, forestry products, carbon dioxide absorbtion and energy. What would we have to do to even cut that in half, never mind actually live within our means?
- New York City has 2.6 million street trees and 800+ community gardens that produce over 8000 lbs of fruit and vegetables a year. That's right within the city.
- There is a lot of waste we don't even see - for every 100 pounds of product manufactured in the US, approximately 3200 lbs of waste is generated.
- On average, a beer bottle is reused 15-20 times before it needs to be reprossed into new bottles! Shows how well the bottle-deposit system works.
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