On July 15th, 2015 –  Junk That Funk was accepted into a project run by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Life Cycle Initiative. We’d responded to an international call for participation in a road test of new environmental performance evaluation guidelines. The call claimed to favour the participation of small medium enterprises (SMEs), as none had yet tried out the UNEP/SETAC’s … Read more »

June 2015 was a busy month for us. We picked up just over 45,000 lbs. of electronic waste. That’s about 20 tons of e-waste diverted from landfills in Ottawa. You might be wondering what we collected. Well…here goes… 60% of the e-waste collected were old computer monitors and televisions. 20%  was DVD, CD and VHS players and other miscellaneous and associated e-waste of those items. 15% were old computer towers/ … Read more »

Here it is. Our full E-waste schedule for 2015, but first, maybe some clarification is required…. What is an E-waste event? Electronic E-waste round up events are put on by Junk That Funk in efforts to reduce recyclable materials ending up landfills. E-waste round up events are designed to be a hassle free drop off site where you can assure your items will be 100% recycled! At our free drop … Read more »

February 10th was a sad day in Ottawa…. Ottawa’s Plasco Energy Group filed for creditor protection and eliminated 80 jobs in nation’s capital, in an effort to restructure. Only 25 employees will remain through the course of this transition and the Trail Rd. facility will no longer operate. This is the latest in a series of challenges for Plasco, which was attempting to build a plant to convert municipal waste to energy. … Read more »

K-cup coffee pods are convenient items in our everyday lives. They allow us to make a single cup of our favourite tea or coffee quickly and efficiently, without the excess of a whole pot of something that goes cold. Here’s the catch. By making each pod so individual and easy to dispose of, packaging increases exponentially—packaging that ultimately ends up in landfills. K-cup pods aren’t recyclable. They’re made of No. 7 plastic – a … Read more »

Bait & Switch: a sales tactic in which a customer is attracted by the advertisement of a low-priced item but is then encouraged to buy a higher-priced one In this case, it’s less of encouragement to purchase something of a higher value, and more like just fraud. Late last year, a Vancouver franchisee of a junk removal company was caught on camera overcharging customers by a significant percentage. Amy Savoie … Read more »

Came across this great article in Wired Online, that outlines just how much a growing issue consumer electronic e-waste is becoming. The manufacturers of a lot of our favourite items aren’t making things any easier, either. Some 41.5 million tons of electronic waste was generated in 2011, and that number is expected to rise to 93.5 million by 2016, according to the research firm MarketsandMarkets. Right now, 70 to 80 percent … Read more »

Orange Drop is a provincial initiative aiming at curbing or eliminating the number of hazardous materials being disposed of in Ontario’s landfills, or poured down sewer drains. Fully funded by industry, the province wide array of drop off sites accept nine materials. The program’s website gives a glimpse into some interesting facts and statistics about the kinds of things Ontarians don’t dispose of properly. The Orange Drop program safely manages nine materials to … Read more »

Canada is a vast expanse. We’re rich in natural landscape, unfettered by the encroachment of civilization. We live in a massive country with a tremendous amount of boreal forest and nature. Unfortunately, as a nation, we have some issues with trashing our woods and forests. The CBC published a very interesting article on this last week, and it’s a bit sobering to say the least. They even included a series … Read more »

Staggering statistic time. 40 million tons of e-waste is discarded globally each year, with only about 13 percent currently undergoing some form of recycling: The rest winds up in the trash and landfills. To put this into perspective – NASA and private enterprise is staging and financing eventual trips to asteroids for rare earth metals. Elements like palladium, copper, nickel, and tungsten. We’re using so much of this stuff in … Read more »

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