Recycling Facts

• If you throw one aluminum can out, the energy wasted by not recycling is equivalent to filling the same can 1/2 full of gasoline and pouring it out.
• Enough aluminum is thrown away each year to rebuild the entire U.S. Commercial air fleet every three months.
• There is only one job in the trash industry for every four in the recycling industry. Why? It takes more people to make new products.
• A plastic or styrofoam cup used for a few minutes takes approximately 400 years to decompose.
• It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper. Paper products consume 35% of the world's commercial wood harvest. This figure is expected to increase to 50% by the year 2000.
• It requires 64% less energy (kWh) to produce paper from waste paper than virgin wood pulp.
• 74% less air pollution is produced from the manufacturing of recycled paper compared to paper from virgin wood pulp.
• Recycled paper uses 58% less water compared to virgin paper production.
• About 27% of America's paper waste is recycled. It's estimated that at the current rate of recycling over 200 million trees are saved each year.
• Approximately 41 billion glass containers are produced in the United States each year.
• A paper bag can return to soil in just seven days.
• Over 40% of all U.S. municipal solid waste consists of paper and paperboard products.
• The U.S. annually uses over 75 million tons of paper and paperboard - about 600 pounds per person - and we currently recycle about 20 million tons.
• Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail each year.
• About 44% of junk mail is never opened.
• In one year Americans throw away 28 billion recyclable glass bottles and jars.
• Beverage cans are the biggest single-use of aluminum.
• Recycling uses 90% less energy than making new aluminum.
• It takes 30-60% less energy to make "new" paper from "old" paper, and 95% less air pollution.
• One (1) gallon of spilled gasoline can contaminate approximately 750,000 gallons of water.
• The average U.S. office worker generates 1 1/3 pounds of office waste paper every day.
• Lead-acid batteries are the most recycled products in the United States. The breakdown is as follows: 98% Lead Batteries, 65% Aluminum Cans, 37% Glass Bottles, and 59% Newspapers.
• One acre of Christmas trees produces the daily oxygen requirements for 18 people.
• The United States has approximately 1 million acres of Christmas trees. This means that Christmas trees provide oxygen for 18 million people every day.
• Newspapers typically can be recycled five to seven times. Each time they are recycled, their fibers become shortened. Eventually, they become too short to make a good paper.
• Americans buy about 65 million newspapers every day.
• Nearly six of every 10 U.S. newspapers are recycled.
• It takes 17 trees, on average, to produce one ton of paper.
• Producing paper from recycled paper reduces air and water pollution by 50%.
• Recycling one ton of paper saves 7,000 gallons of water and 4,100-kilowatt hours of electricity.
• Steel is the most recycled material in North America. In 1996, the overall steel recycling rate was about 65%.
• About 3 billion aerosol containers are manufactured and sold in the U.S. annually. If all of those cans were recycled that would be enough steel to manufacture 160,000 cars.