Conservation Strategies Managing Waste Paper

Samuel Pan, Sunnie Tang Brian Chu, David Zhang, Rose Xin, Bill Li, Kathy Chen

1. Introduction Waste management is the processes involved in the disposal of human made waste. With the improved quality of life in society today, waste is being generated in record amounts, with greater toxicity than ever before. Especially in MEDCs, where high population density in cities results in huge amounts of waste being produced. This is seen as a problem as wastes take up space and could potentially be dangerous to the residents in the area. In order to reduce waste, cities like Vancouver encourage recycling. Wastes like paper and some plastics can be reused to reduce the wastes as well as make products that is of some use. This method of waste reclamation also helps reduce energy usage because the energy that would have been used to create new products can be instead used for something else. There are many ways of encouraging recycling, such as taxes on goods that can be reclaimed when the goods are recycled. There are also many other steps to recycling, such as reducing the amount of waste produced, and reconstituting the waste. This often means burning the waste to produce some energy. These methods all help mitigate the amount of waste heading to landfills, and are some steps for the city to become more ecologically sustainable.

2. Describe the historical pattern (40 years) of paper as a percentage of waste in Vancouver (or the GVRD). Be sure to include the corresponding volume/number of trees in terms of paper Paper waste has always been one of the few contributor to solid waste in Vancouver, by the time in 2007, paper and paperboard takes up around 18% of the total waste in Metro Vancouver. That was 197784.71 tonnes of waste in one year. On average, each person would use up 93 kilograms of paper per year. This represent that thirty people a year would use the same amount of paper as a matured tree [1]. With the record nearest to 2013, the paper waste remain as the top three contributor of solid waste, but the amount of disposed waste has decline. More recycling are done to prevent the natural resources from using up too fast. Though, around one hundred thousand tonnes of paper is disposed due to various reasons [2]. From what was mention above, obviously the conservation of resource is taken place, by recycling used paper waste, it saved thirty thousands of trees per year from getting chop down. So as we can see, generally the community is paying more attention on the classification of waste to reduce disposal of paper and other reusable material. Just from 2007 to 2013, the amount of disposed paper decrease by about 50%. When looking further back for forty years, the overall trend of percentage in solid for paper is generally from 13% to 18% as the top three contributor, though, the amount of waste reduced. Therefore even though paper waste is still a major problem on resource conservation, but it is getting slowly resolved over time.

Conservation Strategies Managing Waste Paper

Samuel Pan, Sunnie Tang Brian Chu, David Zhang, Rose Xin, Bill Li, Kathy Chen

3. Explain the options available for Vancouvers (GVRD) waste in order to minimize and reduce waste generated ---- technologies to reduce amounts at landfills
In Vancouvers Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, a goal called Zero Waste was established. The target of this goal is to reduce solid waste going to the landfill or incinerator by 50% from 2008 levels. Some priority actions were carried out to help reach the goal and they include:[3] Collect all compostable waste from single-family homes and pilot food scraps collection in apartments and condominiums (100% complete) Develop a program to encourage building deconstruction for renovation and demolition projects (100% complete) Advocate for more Extended Producer Responsibility programs for packaging and more (75% complete) Develop multi-family food scraps diversion strategy (40% complete) Develop education and enforcement programs to keep recyclables out of the waste stream (5% complete) Green Bin Program: This program allows residents in houses, duplexes, and some multi-unit residential buildings to add their food scraps to their Green Bins. The City then recycles food scraps into valuable compost and soil for use in the region. It is calculated that if every resident in GVRD recycles food scraps for a whole year, 5500 trucks of food scraps can be removed from the landfill.[4] This recycling food scraps is an important part of Vancouvers strategy to reduce greenhouse gases and organic waste going to the landfill.
Photo 1 - Green bins for all homes [5]

Green demolition: About 22% of the waste in GVRD land fill sites comes from construction and demolition. To reduce this waste the city encourages deconstruction. Deconstruction is an environmentally friendly alternative to demolition which involves systematically disassembling a building. Through this action some building materials can be reused before they get disposed at the City landfill. This safes some of the need of new building materials which means less natural resources are used and less GHG emissions from production and shipping are created.

Photo 2 - Destruction of a house [6]

Vancouver's proposed zero-waste innovation centre: In support of its Greenest City 2020 Action Plan goals, the City has submitted a proposal to GVRD to provide a site for a potential new non-incineration resource and energy recovery centre. The proposed site is an option that would support GVRD's plan to move away from using landfills; divert as much recyclable and compostable material from garbage as possible;

Conservation Strategies Managing Waste Paper

Samuel Pan, Sunnie Tang Brian Chu, David Zhang, Rose Xin, Bill Li, Kathy Chen convert waste that is truly unrecyclable into valuable, green energy; help minimize air pollution associated with trucking and processing waste; and create long-term local green jobs. If the proposed site is selected by GVRD, the City will ensure strict environmental and social criteria are met. Some key conditions for development include: [7] No incineration of garbage Stringent air quality guidelines are met or exceeded Maximum diversion of compostable and recyclables materials from garbage Waste heat is captured for neighbourhood energy, minimizing air pollution The City's neighbourhood energy centre guidelines are met Proactive, comprehensive community consultation as part of the development process The City does not support garbage incineration facilities, and would not allow the burning of garbage at the proposed facility under any circumstances. One of the technologies that Vancouver would consider is gasification, which is different than incineration. Incineration burns solid waste to produce steam which generates electricity. Gasification is a non-incineration process that converts unrecyclable and non-compostable waste into a gas similar to natural gas, which can then be used to produce heat and electricity.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs The City of Vancouver supports the provincial Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy approach in which producers are responsible for reducing the environmental impact of their products. [8] A producer's responsibility runs from material selection and product design to the product end-of-life. EPR was formerly known as Industry Product Stewardship. This program is successive in reducing the waste production of the industries and improving the regional environment.

4. Evaluate ways that paper has been and can be reused, recycled and used for material and energy recovery. Refer to programs in the region (they may differ) and keep in mind and allude to reducing the use of trees The prospect of recycling paper developed as people become more aware of environmental issues with consumption. The paper recycling process involves turning used paper into fibre, which is then used to reconstruct new paper products [9]. Recycling paper needs technology to progress; used paper must first be grinded into pulp and have non-fibre materials, such as staples and glass, removed from the pulp. Next, the pulp is cleaned and filtered to make it suitable for papermaking, and de-inking and bleaching is done to make higher graded recycled paper [10]. Advantages to recycling paper includes environmental benefits. Recycling deals with reducing the amount of raw input required in production of paper: with recovered paper transformed into new papermaking input, less timber is required to produce the same amount of paper, meeting demand while decreasing consumption of natural resources. Through recycling, it is possible to decrease deforestation as less timber is required to meet paper demand, but

Conservation Strategies Managing Waste Paper

Samuel Pan, Sunnie Tang Brian Chu, David Zhang, Rose Xin, Bill Li, Kathy Chen since the lumber industry deals with many different products, it is difficult to see the effectiveness of recycling on decreasing deforestation. By decreasing deforestation based on demand for paper, recycling paper contributes to reducing global warming and improving environment conservation. In addition to decreasing industrial input, recycling paper also saves energy in the production of paper, as making paper from recovered paper products uses less energy and water to produce the same amount of paper compared to making virgin, new paper [11]. Furthermore, recycling paper decreases the amount of solid waste deposited at local landfills, decreasing the rate that landfill sites saturate and alleviating environmental issues associated with landfilling. The paper recycling process produces green jobs as well and has small economic and social benefits [12]. Recycling paper has drawbacks as well [13]. The most significant disadvantage of paper recycling is that the process is costly to run and leads to financial concerns and controversy for recycling paper. Due to a high initial cost associated with installation of paper recycling machinery and technology, additional fees often accompanies enforcements to recycle paper. Vancouver is involved in Multi-Material B.C.s paper recycling program and had planned to put the funding for recycling on businesses, where businesses will have to fund for their own mandatory recycling costs [14][15]. Businesses in Vancouver, especially small businesses, are against the new self-funding recycling costs, as it would bring negative financial influences and can be devastating for small businesses. As such, the Ministry of Environment corrected that businesses that profits less than $1 million annually, or contributes less than one tonnes of paper to waste, will be free of recycling charges. Vancouvers paper waste management is successful at enlarging the scope of recycling, as businesses self-funding mandatory recycling costs will place less financial stress on the government to monitor and maintain paper recycling processes, ultimately improving the effectiveness of paper recycling program in Vancouver and contributes to meeting the goal of increasing recycling rate of paper from 52% to 75% [16]. The decision to free small businesses of recycling costs also serves to minimize economic impact to the region, maintaining job opportunities and financial flow. However, it is still seen that, due to the cost of recycling paper, people do not readily accept recycling paper, which reduces the scale at which paper recycling takes place and decreases the effectiveness of recycling paper on reducing paper solid waste output. Another way of recycling paper is to use it as fuel for incinerating: this process is used to produce electrical energy, but has environmental issues similar to fossil fuel burning and is less appealing than recycling paper to construct new material. Paper can also be reused by using waste paper as workspace for childrens drawings, for origami, or strengthening domestic pet shelters, but these reusing paper options are individual-specific and are not especially economically important, so paper reusing options are not widely considered.

5. Conclusion Waste management is a crucial issue that needs governmental attention immediately. The practices that are used in a country to generate waste are so dangerously at a point of an

Conservation Strategies Managing Waste Paper

Samuel Pan, Sunnie Tang Brian Chu, David Zhang, Rose Xin, Bill Li, Kathy Chen uncontrollable state. The citizens of the country often have little awareness of this critical factor in their lives and it is important to educate these people and convince them to adopt practices for reducing, reusing and recycling rather generating garbage constantly. As time advances further into the future it will be even more important to at least develop a basic, sustainable plan for environmental sustainability or else the biosphere would be eventually wasted with all the garbage produced plus the added factor of pollution.

Although waste disposal, specifically paper, has declined over the years in Vancouver, recycling and other means of waste management still have room for improvement. To achieve higher standards, organisations have taken many measures to promote sustainable waste disposal methods, such as by advertisement and education. Recycling is a good way to reuse paper and leads to many benefits such as creating more jobs. However, it also has its disadvantages such as its costly process. Furthermore, Using paper as an incinerator fuel can produce electricity. However, this method raises many environmental concerns similar to those of fossil fuels. Due to the significant drawbacks of paper reuse, these conservation methods of paper waste are not widely considered. These alternatives are great but the best way to conserve resources is to dispose less.
Endnotes 1.http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/2004_Waste_Composition_Re port.pdf 2.http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/2013_Waste_Composition_Re port.pdf 3. http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/zero-waste.aspx 4. http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/food-scraps-program.aspx 5. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mayorofvancouver/8640793697/ 6. http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/green-demolition-practices.aspx 7. http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/proposed-south-vancouver-zero-wasteenergy-centre.aspx 8. http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/extended-producer-responsibility-programs.aspx 9 .http://www.paperonline.org/environment/paper-recycling/the-paper-recycling-process 10.IBID 11.IB Chemistry study guide 12.http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-recycling.php 13.IBID 14.http://multimaterialbc.ca/node/362 15 .http://www.vancouversun.com/business/businesses+seek+11th+hour+derailment+recycling +program+packaging+printed+paper/9598063/story.html 16.IBID Bibliography "Advantages and Disadvantages of Recycling - Conserve Energy Future." ConserveEnergyFuture. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://www.conserve-energyfuture.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-recycling.php>.

Conservation Strategies Managing Waste Paper

Samuel Pan, Sunnie Tang Brian Chu, David Zhang, Rose Xin, Bill Li, Kathy Chen "B.C. Businesses Seek 11th-hour Derailment of Recycling Program for Packaging and Printed Paper." Www.vancouversun.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://www.vancouversun.com/business/businesses%2Bseek%2B11th%2Bhour%2Bderailmen t%2Brecycling%2Bprogram%2Bpackaging%2Bprinted%2Bpaper/9598063/story.html>. "Coming Soon to Every Single-family Home and Duplex in #Vancouver: A Kitchen Container for All food scraps #recycling, as Part of Vancouver's New Green Bin Program. Check out Http://Vancouver.ca/greenbin for Everything You Need to Know." Flickr. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <https://www.flickr.com/photos/mayorofvancouver/8640793697/>. "Green Bin Program: Toward Zero Waste." Green Bin Program. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/food-scraps-program.aspx>. "Green Demolition: Deconstructing a House." Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/green-demolition-practices.aspx>. "Metro Vancouver." Metro Vancouver. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://www.metrovancouver.org/>. "Multi-Material BC Selects Green by Nature EPR to Manage Post-collection System for Packaging and Printed Paper Recycling Program." Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://multimaterialbc.ca/node/362>. "The Paper Recycling Process." Paper Online -. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://www.paperonline.org/environment/paper-recycling/the-paper-recycling-process>. "Vancouver's Proposed Zero-waste Innovation Centre." Zero-waste Energy Centre: Renewable Energy. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://vancouver.ca/home-propertydevelopment/proposed-south-vancouver-zero-waste-energy-centre.aspx>. "Zero Waste." Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. <http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/zerowaste.aspx>.