Does Recycling Create Jobs or Save Money – See How Landfills are Wasting our Money!

It’s absolutely mindboggling how much money Canada throws away every year in its waste management systems. There are a decent number of items put into our landfills which can be exchanged for money, worth a great deal to the rapidly advancing recycling industry.

A huge criticism of the environmental, climate change, and recycling movements has been it negatively impacts jobs or is anti-business. This isn’t exactly accurate to the reality of waste management however. The more we put into our landfills, the less money we save. The space in our landfills is very valuable. As you’ll find in the following sections, the truth about recycling in Canada is that it’s creating jobs and saving money – and it can continue to do that, if we let it.

Are you sure that recycling creates jobs?

Consider the recycling industry as a sort of underdeveloped category of waste management. After all, that’s pretty much what it is. In the last decade, as we’ve seen it develop, we have acquired verifiable evidence that recycling’s been creating jobs and will continue to. On average, recycling creates at least 9 times more jobs than our current landfills and incinerators have. This is due to all the sorting and processing, sale, reuse, and remanufacturing that any recycling brings with it.

What do current statistics show about working in recycling?

In the current Canadian waste management industry, it’s estimated that there are 25,000 jobs across landfills and incinerators. Comparatively, Canada’s list of recycling jobs number closer to 125,000 people. This is where the recycling industry jobs v. waste management industry jobs comparison is at today, although increasingly we have seen a shift towards more and more employment and business opportunity based around recycling.

How many jobs could Canada create with recycling?

Canada’s recycling rate varies according to city and region, although nation-wide statistics usually refer to somewhere between 27-35 percent. This certainly is not very high. A recent study analyzing the economic impact of recycling in Canada suggests that an increase of the Canadian recycling rate to 75 percent could create up to 1.1 million new jobs.

What are some of the jobs recycling has created?

Unlike general waste management, recycling has the potential to create so many different categories of jobs and work. Some of these jobs are manufacturing related, such as those who make the recycling equipment. There are also those who work at facilities that collect, process, and prepare discarded materials for sorting and recycling. There are reuse stores and facilities selling recycled items to the general public. There are also specialized facilities oftentimes with corporate partnerships who will accept recycled materials and turn them into new products.

Every year, new recycling businesses are starting in Canada

Canada has yet to see a year in over two decades where the number of recycling businesses decreases. There are already strong markets built to accumulate, recycle, and sell common materials like paper, plastic, aluminum, glass, and metal. This is probably as you expect. There’s also so much more, from organic recycling facilities to toner cartridge recycling facilities, construction material recycling, household goods, clothing and textiles, and over 200 other categories of recycling. This is an industry flourishing at a time when the world really needs it.

Why it’s important for Canada to focus on recycling

Economically, Canada will be literally throwing money away in the trash if we continue maintaining such a low recycling rate. Where there’s money to be made, make it! On top of that, Canada’s fortunate in having so much beautiful nature to explore and seemingly untouched environments. As we continue to accumulate more population from other countries and have families ourselves, it’s important that in all this development, we protect the resources and environment that make Canada what it is. To some degree, you might say it’s a patriotic investment to focus in on recycling as an economic and conservation move.

Why some say Canada’s recycling industry is broken

Canada pays for a lot of processes in its waste management that it doesn’t have to. Our governments pay to collect and dump waste, we pay to have it hauled off to other countries as exported waste such as to parts of Asia, and like other countries, when there’s a surplus of recyclable materials, we sometimes pay to have them thrown into landfills or they are incinerated. The industry is still developing which unfortunately means mistakes are being made, stakeholders are still learning, and there’s a lot of opportunities being missed. In the years to come we hope things change but if there ever was a viable criticism of how we recycle in Canada currently, this is it.

Did you know we can recycle almost anything?

It’s true that we can recycle almost any material that is non-toxic. The issue right now is that we either don’t have the facilities to do so or the market hasn’t developed to make it economically sensible to collect, process, and sell certain materials. To this point, there are so many underdeveloped opportunities in the worldwide recycling industry that is entirely not Canada’s fault. Even so, how much money we derive annually from recycling could increase so much assuming we made concrete commitments to building the facilities we need to adequate sort, process, and sell these less popular materials.

Saving money with more composting

We all create food waste from our scraps, crumbs, foods that spoil, and more. Food waste is an inevitability for any and every household. This is an example of an opportunity in our current recycling and waste management practices which is largely undeveloped. Although we bag organic waste and send it off to waste management centers for sorting, we could cut down on the strain this puts on our waste systems by emphasizing a culture of composting. If every household, apartment building, or condo development had their own composting area or composting center, this would eliminate thousands of pounds of waste trucks would otherwise have to pick up.

As a waste disposal company, Core Mini Bins wants to see cities like Toronto step up and keep their streets, businesses, and properties clean and green. As the recycling industry continues developing, we can’t wait to see what happens next and the many, many jobs which will be created! Contact with us for more detail.