On a slightly different note…

World News Australia today posted an article with Australia’s environmental stats as collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It claims that 99% of Australian households engage in some form of recycling, up 8% from March 1996. Approximately 90% of Australians have access to kerbside recycling. As well, nearly 9 out of 10 households reuse their plastic bags in some form.

These numbers look staggeringly good. But they got an ‘F’ anyway. Why? Transportation – not enough people are walking, biking, carpooling, or taking the bus.

Let’s take a moment and absorb this information. Alright, now compare that with some Canadian statistics. Every year, Statistics Canada issues a report entitled ‘Human Activity and the Environment: Annual Statistics.’ While the scope of the Canadian statistics does not exactly mirror those of Australia, we can still get a pretty good idea of what’s going on. (Yes, I’m aware that these numbers are from 2002, and that the tides have since shifted slightly. But from the looks of things, we’re going to have to wait until 2010 to get our 2006 numbers…!)

Now I’m no statistician (and most people stare in awe when I calculate restaurant tips on my fingers) but I have a funny feeling that the fact that only 22% of the total non-hazardous waste generated was diverted from disposal is, in layman’s terms, not good. And I understand – some things just can’t be recycled yet. Debris from construction sites, a lot of industrial waste, yada yada yada. But then you realize that residential sources accounted for 40% of waste disposal, and construction and demolition sources only accounted for 12%, and you realize that we’ve got a problem.

Construction and demolition sites (to a certain extent) can’t help what they throw out. But residential waste patterns can be affected greatly by everyone just doing their share. If people recycle or reuse their plastic bags or (preferably) take plastic bags out of the equation altogether (you knew that was coming!), maybe we’d be able to crawl out of the cave and perhaps, some day, set the curve.

 Just a thought…