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Currently, in the United States, 30 percent of our waste is recovered and recycled or composted, 14 percent is burned at combustion facilities, and the remaining 56 percent is disposed of in landfills.
Paper
• Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, 4,100 kwh of energy*, 7,000 gallons of water, and 3 cubic yards of landfill space, as well as keeping 60 pounds of effluents out of the air and reducing water pollution by 35%.
*enough energy to power the average American home for 5 months
• It takes more than 500,000 trees to produce the newspapers Americans read each Sunday, yet only 30% of all newspapers are recycled.
• Every year more than 900 million trees are cut down to provide raw materials for the 67 million tons of paper used by Americans each year.
Glass
• It takes approximately 1 million years for a glass bottle to break down in a landfill.
• Glass never wears out—it can be recycled forever.
• Producing glass from virgin materials requires 30% more energy than producing it from crushed used glass.
Aluminum
• Recycling one ton of aluminum saves 37 barrels of oil.
• It takes 4 tons of ore to produce one ton of aluminum
• The aluminum beverage can returns to the grocer’s shelf as a new, filled can in as little as 90 days after collection, remelting, rolling, manufacturing and distribution.
Steel
• Recycling tin and steel cans saves between 60-74% of the energy used to produce them from raw materials.
• Every ton of steel recycled saves 2,500 lbs. of iron ore, 1,400 lbs. of coal, and 120 lbs of limestone.
• Annually, enough energy is saved by recycling steel to supply Los Angeles with electricity for almost 10 years
Plastic
• Plastics require 100 to 400 years to break down in a landfill
• Recycling one ton of plastic can save 1 to 2 thousand gallons of gas.
• Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas
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