Aluminum	Paper	Glass	Plastics	Steel	Tires	Waste
Energy	Litter Decomposition			Historical Tidbits

Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within six - eight weeks. (The Aluminum Association)

Recycling aluminum results in 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution than producing aluminum from ore. (California Integrated Waste Management Board)

Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy necessary to mine bauxite ore and extract alumina, the raw materials needed to manufacture aluminum. (Earth Day Resources, Recycling Fact Sheet, 1990)

One recycled aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for 3 hours. (The Aluminum Association)

Recycling 1 ton of aluminum saves the equivalent in energy of 2,350 gallons of gasoline. This is equivalent to the amount of electricity used by the typical home over a period of 10 years. (Indiana Department of Education, Waste Reduction Guide)

More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of aluminum foil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it. (The Internet Consumer Recycling Guide Grassroots Recycling)

Forests are oxygen factories - to grow a pound of wood a tree uses 1.47 pounds of carbon dioxide and gives off 1.07 pounds of oxygen. (American Forest & Paper Association)

If you are an average American, it’s going to take 465 trees to provide you with a lifetime of paper. (Town of Islip, NY, 1988)

Enough paper is recycled each year to fill a boxcar train 7,600 miles long. (American Forest & Paper Association)

45 million tons of paper were recovered in the United States in 1998 - an average of 336 pounds per person. (American Forest & Paper Association)

Americans throw away the equivalent of more than 30 million trees in newsprint each year. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

If every American family recycled their newspapers, approximately 500,000 trees would be saved weekly. (Taken from The Derrick/The News-Herald Newspaper: Friday, October 30, 1998, Page 12.)

The EPA has found that making paper from recycled materials results in 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution. This means that every ton of recycled paper keeps almost 60 pounds of pollutants out of the atmosphere compared to manufacturing paper from wood. (Pimentel, David, The Seeds of Change)

Every ton of paper recycled saves approximately 4,200 kilowatt hours of electricity; enough energy to heat and air-condition the average American home for about 6 months. (South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, Recycle - Save Energy)

17 southern pulpwood trees are saved when you recycle one ton (2000 lbs) of paper. (Californians Against Waste Foundation, Recycling Means Business in California)

Recycled paper production uses 58% less water than virgin paper production. (Earth Care Paper Fact Sheet)

Making a ton of virgin paper requires 3,688 lbs of wood, 24,000 gallons of water, 216 lbs of lime, 360 lbs of salt cake and 76 lbs of soda ash. We then treat and dispose of 84 lbs of air pollutants, 36 lbs of water pollutants and 176 lbs of solid waste. (Browning-Ferris Industries, MOBIUS Curriculum: Understanding the Waste Cycle)

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100 watt bulb for 4 hours. (San Diego County Office of Education, RAYS - Recycle and You Save)

We save over a ton of resources for every ton of glass recycled: 1330 lbs of sand, 433 lbs of soda ash, 433 lbs of limestone and 151 lbs of feldspar. (EarthWorks Group, 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth)

Using recycled glass to make new glass cuts related air pollution by up to 20%. (Californians Against Waste Foundation, Recycling Means Business in California)

Most bottles and jars in the United States contain at least 25% recycled glass. Glass never wears out. It can be recycled forever. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

Americans make enough low density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic every year to shrink-wrap the state of Texas. Most of it ends up in the landfill. (Exxon Chemical Company, Chemtalk)

It takes 5 recycled two-liter soda bottles to make enough fiberfill for a ski jacket. (National Association for Plastic Container Recovery, Plastic Fact Sheet)

It takes 1,050 plastic milk jugs to make a 6-foot plastic park bench. (Exxon Chemical Company, Chemtalk)

If the Pilgrims had six-packs, we’d still have the plastic rings from them today. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

Making tin cans from recycled steel takes only one-fourth of the energy and creates only one-fourth of the water and air pollution created by making cans from new steel. (Newman, S. & Schwarz, M., 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Recycle)

Americans throw away enough steel every year to build all the new cars made in America. (Newman, S. & Schwarz, M., 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Recycle)

Sixty percent of the world’s lead supply comes from recycled automotive batteries. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

It takes half a barrel of crude oil to produce the rubber in just one truck tire. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

About eight out of every ten tires in the United States wind up in landfills or “stockpiles”. An estimated 2 to 3 billion tires are currently stockpiled in the U.S. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

Replacing one incandescent lightbulb with an energy-saving compact fluorescent bulb means 1,000 pounds less carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere and $67 dollars is saved on energy costs over the bulb's lifetime. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Alliance to Save Energy)

Americans represent only 5% of the world’s population, but generate 30% of the world’s garbage. (Thurston County Public Works, Trash Flash)

In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage. If you add it up, that means that a 150 pound person will leave a legacy of 90,000 pounds for his or her children. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

In a supervised project, Boulder County, Colorado dumped over 5,000 Christmas trees into nearby lakes. The trees shelter fish and attract bugs for them to eat. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

In some cities garbage was simply tossed out the window and covered periodically with dirt. During the Bronze Age in Troy, it is estimated that the street level rose an average of about 4.7 feet per century. (Wilson, Wendy, No Time to Waste)

About 500 B.C. Athens issued the first known edict against throwing garbage into the streets, and organized the first municipal dumps by requiring scavengers to dispose of waste no less than one mile from the city walls. (Worldwatch Institute (Worldwatch Paper 76)

In 1690, the first papermill in the U.S. was established by the Rittenhouse family on the banks of the Wissahickon Creek, near Philadelphia, PA. The paper was made from recycled rags. (Landfills are #1, Garbage)

Curbside recycling originated in 1874 in Baltimore, MD. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)

In 1889, a Washington, D.C. health official wrote “Appropriate placed for {refuse} are becoming scarcer year by year… The waste must be provided for, and provisions should not be longer delayed”. (Landfills are #1, Garbage)

As late as 1947, virtually 100% of all beverage containers were returnable. (EarthWorks Group, The Recycler’s Handbook)