Recycling

1 Ton of Recycled Paper = 3 Tons of wood

1 Ton of Recycled Paper = 53.2 million BTU's

1 Ton of Recycled Paper = 380 gallons of Oil

You can help save the planet by recycling and thinking with the environment in mind. On this page you will find some ways to do that along with some interesting facts .

Recycling has become an everyday habit for Americans. As a result, recycling has grown substantially from 11% to 32% . Every year, each of us still discards nearly 1600 pounds of trash, most of which still goes to landfills and incinerators.

According to the National Recycling Coalition, the amount of energy saved in one year by Americans recycling their soda cans, plastic containers, newspapers and packaging represented the energy equivalent of:

Enough gasoline to power 11 million passenger cars for a year
A year's worth of electricity supply for 17.8 million Americans
11 percent of the energy produced by coal-fired power plants in a year
29 percent of nuclear electricity generation in a year

By making products from recycled materials instead of virgin materials, we reduce the need to cut down trees, drill for oil, and dig for minerals. It usually takes less energy to make recycled products.

In most cases, making products from recycled materials creates less air pollution and water pollution than making products from virgin materials. When the materials that you recycle go into new products, they don't go into landfills or incinerators, so scarce landfill space is conserved. Recycling creates jobs, saves valuable resources and is simple to do. Before you throw away think about the Earth and reuse, reduce and recycle.

The term Recycling has become a part of our everyday vocabulary. We take for granted that we Recycle everything as much as we can. If we look at the Recycling rates for the major cities in the United States it is obvious we have a big opportunity for improving our efforts in Recycling. The National Recycling rate is only 32%.

In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each, but only recycled an average of 38 bottles per person, which equals about 50 billion plastic bottles consumed, with only 23% being recycled. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills. Buy a refillable bottle and fill it with tap water instead!

Recycling Rates

EPA Graphic

United States Recycling Rates

EPA Graphic

U.S. Cities

Newark	58%	Chicago	25%
Seattle	49%	Baltimore	20%
San Diego	45%	New York	19%
LA	43%	Houston	10%
San Francisco	35%	Philadelphia	7%
Minneapolis	29%

European Union Recycling Rates

Estimated Decomposition Rates

Paper	2-4 Weeks
Leaves	1-3 Months
Orange Peels	6 Months
Milk Carton	5 years
Plastic Bag	10-20 Years
Plastic Container	50-80 Years
Aluminum Can	80 Years
Tin Can	100 Years
Plastic Soda Bottle	450 Years
Glass Bottle	500 Years
Styrofoam	Never

Sourrce : Penn State

The numbers on these tables are scientists best estimates of decomposition rates-The "chemistry" of decomposition of waste is complicated -- very complicated. The rate of decomposition of various trash components depends not only on what the component is, but what other materials the component comes into contact with ( ex. water ,sunlight). For example, at neutral pH (~7) aluminum is very stable, but at low pH (~3) or high pH (~9) it decomposes rapidly.

Be aware that since many of today's land fills are sealed, decomposition rates are very low due to the dry and essentially oxygen free conditions in the land fills themselves. According to New Scientist Magazine, plastic shopping bags are better in these conditions than paper. The reasoning is that plastic takes up 1/10 the space of paper and the paper takes so long to decompose that land fill volume is the critical ecological factor.

Paper:	2-4 Weeks
Banana Peel:	3-5 Weeks
Wool Cap:	1 Year
Cigarette Butt:	2-5 Years
Disposable Diaper:	10-20 Years
Hard Plastic Container:	20-30 Years
Rubber Boot Sole:	50-80 Years
Tin Can:	80-100 Years
Aluminum Can:	200-400 Years
Plastic 6-pack Holder:	450 Years
Glass Bottles:	unknown? forever?
Styrofoam cup	unknown? forever?

Source: U.S. Bureau of Land Management

The 3 R's of Recycling

Reduce Reuse Recycle

Reducing waste does not mean you have to reduce what you buy, it means shopping with the environment in mind. Consider the environmental impact of each product before you buy it. Make a list of what you need before you go shopping; this will reduce impulse buying.

Buy in Bulk!

Buy in bulk. It is cheaper and eliminates small containers and excess packaging, which accounts for 50 percent of our domestic trash. You have bought your laundry soap like this for years. Think about what else you can buy in bulk! Avoid buying throw aways that can’t be recycled.Remember, every time you make a purchase, you cast your vote to protect the environment.

Paper or Plastic? - Use Canvas

Learning to reuse is easy and after a little practice, it will become second nature. Here are some great ways to reuse our precious resources. Reuse shopping bags or buy canvas bags and use them when you shop. Buy durable high quality goods for a longer life outside the landfill. Although durable goods may cost a little more at first, they will save you money and help save the environment in the long run. Before throwing anything away, think about how each item can be reused. Be sure to use both sides of a piece of paper before recycling it. Donate clothing, furniture, and appliances to charity. Hospitals and nursing homes often accept old magazines and schools reuse many items in their art and theater classes. Almost all glass, plastic, and metal containers can be reused for storage in the kitchen or the garage. Think before you toss.

Reducing is the best way to protect the environment. However, if you can’t reduce something, reuse it, and if you can’t reuse it, recycle it. Recycling means collecting, processing, marketing, and ultimately using materials that were once discarded.

Many different materials can be recycled. Among these are aluminum cans, glass bottles and jars, plastics, tin cans, steel cans, brass, copper, car batteries, computer paper, office paper, corrugated cardboard, motor oil, scrap iron and steel, and tires.

Separate aluminum, steel and tin cans from other metals. Wipe or lightly rinse all cans and make sure they are dry before recycling them. Prepare newspapers by folding them into brown paper bags or bundle with string into one foot stacks. Prepare glass by rinsing and removing metal or plastic rims and lids. Break down corrugated cardboard boxes. Motor oil should be collected in no larger than five gallon containers and be free of contaminants.

What is in a computer?

On average a computer is 23% plastic, 32% ferrous metals, 18% non-ferrous metals (lead, cadmium, antimony, beryllium, chromium and mercury), 12% electronic boards (gold, palladium, silver and platinum) and 15% glass. Only about 50% of the computer is recycled, the rest is dumped. The toxicity of the waste is mostly due to the lead, mercury and cadmium � non-recyclable components of a single computer may contain almost 2 kilograms of lead. Much of the plastic used contains flame retardants, which makes it difficult to recycle.

What is in a computer

Recycling Facts

Americans use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.

The world's largest human made structure is the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in New York.

Americans generate over 180,000,000 tons of waste each year.

Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch. That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same energy it takes to make one can out of new material.

Each year, the United States discards enough aluminum to completely rebuild the American commercial airline fleet and enough steel to completely rebuild the cities of Chicago and New York.

Each of us generates on average 4.4 pounds of waste per day per person.

Recycling all of your home's waste newsprint, cardboard, glass, and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 850 pounds a year.

It is estimated that 150 million computers will be discarded in the United States alone, enough to fill a hole one acre in area and 3.5 miles deep.

Every Sunday, the United States wastes nearly 90% of the recyclable newspapers. This wastes about 500,000 trees.

Only one percent of the world's water supply is usable. 97 percent is contained in the oceans or seas and 2 percent is found frozen in the polar caps.

Paper made from paper instead of virgin fiber requires up to 70% less energy.

160 million tons of trash is produced each year in the US. 80% is presently landfilled,10% burned, and a mere 10% is recycled.

1 ton of recycled paper saves 3700 pounds of lumber and 24,000 gallons of water.

Incinerating 10,000 tons of waste creates 1 job, land filling the same amount creates 6 jobs, recycling the same 10,000 tons creates 36 jobs.

It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the New York Times.

We throw away enough diapers every year to stretch from the Earth to the Moon 7 times.

Americans throw away enough office paper each year to build a 12-foot-high wall of paper from New York to Los Angeles.

If everyone in the U.S. recycled just 1/10 of their newsprint, we would save the estimated equivalent of about 25 million trees a year.

Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a television for 3 hours.

Making glass from recycled materials cuts related air pollution 20% and water pollution 50%.

About half of the nation's paper, 8% of the steel, 75% of the glass, 40% of the aluminum, and 30% of the total plastics output are used solely to wrap and decorate consumer products.

Most new toilets use about 1.8 gallons of water per flush but- The "average" toilet in homes today probably uses about 3 or 4 gallons

A standard shower head uses about 2.2 gallons of water per minute.

Glass can be recycled "infinitely many times" and it never wears out.

Making glass from recycled materials reduces related water pollution 50% and air pollution 20%.

Recycling steel and tin cans saves 74% of the energy used to produce them from raw materials.

Sixty percent of the world's lead supply comes form recycled car batteries.

Making cans from recycled aluminum cuts related air pollution by 95%

The energy saved form one recycled aluminum can will operate a television set for three hours or to light one 100 watt bulb for 20 hours.

Recycling paper consumes 61% less water and 70% less energy then using Natural Resources.

Waste paper accounts for about 40% of our solid waste

Credit: EPA, Penn State University