I had the most unusual experience Tuesday. Philip, Carlyle, and I were off early to get some errands done. One of those was to bring to the metal recycler some metal, to state the obvious. Now, I’ve been to a number of spots that collect things that are to be recycled. Philip took me to where they recycle aggregate and the eco centres here are the place where we take most of our objects to be recycled or disposed of.

But this was a whole different experience. And it was more like driving onto a large industrial site. There were the immense cranes picking up tossing cars like they were ritz crackers.

Trucks were rolling in with crushed cars covered in netting to keep the parts from falling off. The machines were whirring as they picked up the metal and tossed it onto a giant conveyor belt that took the metal up to a machine that then turned it into smaller pieces and then off to be cleaned and melted.

Canadians produce on average 720 kg of waste per year – that’s 1587 lbs for those of you who need the conversion. Canada produces 1.33 billion metric tons of waste per year with 1.12 billion metric tons being produced by industry.

Waste not want not said my mother.

We’re being challenged to be more green – consider new sources of energy etc… we might also consider how we can reuse or reduce comsumption. Certainly from this day’s adventure I was struck by the thought that we are producing too much waste!