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Did You Know?

  1. Recycling saves energy, the air, water, landfill space, and money!
  2. Recycling creates 1.1 million U.S. jobs, $236 billion in gross annual sales and $37 billion in annual payrolls
  3. The more people recycle the cheaper it gets.
  4. Recycling 1 ton of newspapers saves 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water.
  5. Recycled paper can be used to make everything from school notebooks to kitty litter. Making paper from recycled materials consumes 60 percent less energy than making paper from new wood pulp.
  6. Every bit of recycling makes a difference. For example, one year of recycling on just one college campus, Stanford University, saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 iron ore, coal, and limestone.
  7. The energy we save when we recycle one glass bottle is enough to light a light bulb for hours.
  8. Enough plastic bottles are thrown away in the United States each year to circle the Earth four times.
  9. It takes one million years for plastic bottles to degrade.
  10. Approximately 88 percent of the energy is saved when plastic is made from plastic, rather than from the raw materials of gas and oil.
  11. Recycling creates four jobs for every one job created in the waste management and disposal industries.
  12. Plastic bottles get recycled into cool new things like carpet, clothing, fleece and insulation!
  13. Recycling helps families save money, especially in communities with pay-as-you-throw programs.
  14. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours—or the equivalent of half a gallon of gasoline.
  15. You can build new cars from recycled cans.
  16. Recycling old aluminum uses only 5% of the energy used to make new aluminum.
  17. Americans use 4 million plastic bottles every hour! Only 1 out of 4 is recycled.
  18. While recycling has grown in general, recycling of specific materials has grown even more drastically: 52 percent of all paper, 31 percent of all plastic soft drink bottles, 45 percent of all aluminum soft drink cans, 63 percent of all steel packaging, and 67 percent of all major appliances are now recycled.
  19. Since 1980, the generation of municipal solid waste has grown by 60%.
  20. Statistically the United States recycles just about 28% of its waste today, which is doubled from what it was a decade ago. Unfortunately the U.S. is #1 in trash producing countries, producing about 1,609 pounds of trash per person per year and Canadians produce more garbage per person than almost any other country in the world.