Owen Sound residents are among the best recyclers in Ontario.
The Canadian Press analyzed the latest stats which show Owen Sound residents generate less waste than the provincial average.
In fact, Owen Sound ranks 5th in Ontario at diverting trash from landfill sites.
Recently released data from Waste Diversion Ontario suggests the average Ontario resident generates more than a kilogram of waste every day — or 385 kilograms a year.
That’s more than the weight of a large grizzly bear.
In Owen Sound, the average person was responsible for about 356 kilograms of waste in 2007 — ranking the city 97th out of 206 municipalities.
That total was nowhere near the amount of trash churned out by some of the province’s worst offenders — which added up to almost the weight of a compact car.
Owen Sound residents diverted about 51.2 per cent of their trash from going to landfill, which was 12 percentage points better than the provincial average of 39.2 per cent.
About 94 hundred households had the opportunity to recycle in 2007 and almost 22 hundred tonnes of marketable recyclable material were collected.
About 69 per cent was paper, 17 per cent was glass, eight per cent was plastic and six per cent was metal.
Almost 17 hundred tonnes of organic materials were also collected.