November 2, 2010
Seer Press News
Ontario reached 92% alcohol containers recycling rate
A 92 percent recycling rate is recorded for a recycling system run in Ontario for alcohol containers.
The Beer Store, a province-wide chain funded by brewers, collected 2.1 billion bottles, cans and kegs between May 2009 and April 2010, which saved the need to create 1.2 billion new bottles. In its annual packaging recycling report, Responsible Stewardship, The Beer Store credited two main factors for the high recycling rate: the 10-20 cent deposit on all alcohol bottle and can and the easy access to recycling (86 percent of Ontarians of legal drinking age are a 5-minute drive or less from a store that takes recyclables).
The figures include containers for beers collected through The Beer Store’s deposit system, and containers for wine and spirits that were not sold by The Beer Store, through the Ontario Deposit Return Program.
The containers collected through the two systems add up to 520,000 tonnes of material. 62 percent of the containers were refillable bottles, which can be reused for 12-15 times. Use of refillable containers from 2009-2010 avoided 120,318 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and 2.2 million gigajoules of energy use.
The highest recycling rate came from refillable glass bottles, with a 99.9 percent rate. The next was non-refillable glass, at 91 percent rate, followed by aluminum cans at 82 percent. Kegs, with much lower sales volume, had a 101 percent recycling rate.
http://seerpress.com/ontario-reached-92-alcohol-containers-recycling-rate/12058/
