Recycling Facts

• Currently less than 35% of households and less than 10% of businesses in the United States Recycle
• If recycling in the United States can reach 75%, it will be the environmental benefit of removing 50 million cars

Plastic:

• Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour
• Recycling one ton of plastic bottles saves the equivalent energy usage of a two person household for one year

Cans:

• Recycling a single aluminum an saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours
• Every three months, Americans throw enough aluminum in landfills to build our nation’s entire commercial air fleet
• It requires 95% less energy and water to recycle a can than it does to create a can from virgin materials

Papers:

• An estimated 47% of school garbage is recyclable paper
• Americans throw away enough office paper each year to build a 12 foot high wall from Seattle to New York
• Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the United States
• Making paper from waste paper produces 73% less air pollutants and uses 61% less process water than when paper is made from virgin fiber
• Recycling a stack of newspaper just 3 feet high saves one tree

Glass:

• Glass can be recycled and re-manufactured an infinite amount of times and never wear out
• Recycling just one glass jar saves enough electricity to light an 11 watt CFL bulb for 20 hours
• More than 28 billion glass bottles and jars end up in landfills every year- that is equivalent to filling up two Empire State Buildings every three weeks

Cardboard:

• Recycling cardboard only takes 75% of the energy need to make new cardboard
• Recycling 1 ton of cardboard saves 46 gallons of oil
• Over 90% of all products shipped in the United States are shipped in corrugated boxes, which totals more than 400 billion square feet of cardboard