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Did You Know?
Did you know that on the average each of us here in America drink 167 bottles of water in one year, but only recycle 38 of those bottles - the rest ending up in our landfills? Or that recycling a ton of paper helps prevent 17 trees from being cut? Or that there is gold to be mined in your cell phone?
These are but a few of the many amazing and inspiring recycling facts you will discover in this lens. In recent years, many of us have realized the importance of recycling in conserving limited resources and in protecting the environment. The recycling facts you will read about here will hopefully inspire us all to keep on recycling and helping the Earth.
These are but a few of the many amazing and inspiring recycling facts you will discover in this lens. In recent years, many of us have realized the importance of recycling in conserving limited resources and in protecting the environment. The recycling facts you will read about here will hopefully inspire us all to keep on recycling and helping the Earth.
What We Throw Away
General Recycling Facts
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides this chart illustrating the composition of US municipal solid waste before recycling. These are what we throw away:Paper - 33.9%
Yard Trimmings - 12.9%
Food Scraps - 12.4%
Plastics - 11.7%
Metals - 7.6%
Rubber, Leather, and Textiles - 7.3%
Glass - 5.3%
Wood - 5.5%
Other 3.3%
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA
Municipal Solid Waste: Basic Information
Image used in the introduction courtesy of Pinellas County Utilities
Recycling Creates Jobs
General Recycling Facts
The Washington, DC-based Institute For Local Self-Reliance calculates that recycling creates 36 jobs per 10,000 tons of material recycled compared to 6 jobs for every 10,000 of tons brought to traditional disposal facilities."Recycling was a net job creator - for every 100 jobs created by recycling only an estimated 13 were lost in solid waste collection and disposal and virgin material extraction within the state."
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Puzzled About Recycling's Value? Look Beyond the Bin
Recycling creates many more jobs for rural and urban communities than landfill and incineration disposal options. Just sorting collected recyclable materials sustains, on a per-ton basis, 10 times more jobs than landfilling.
Institute For Local Self-Reliance
"The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling"
Image courtesy of pro.corbis.com
Recycling - The Cost-Effective Alternative
General Recycling Facts
On average, it costs $30 per ton to recycle trash, $50 to send it to the landfill, and $65 to $75 to incinerate it."In the summer of 2002, New York City suspended glass and plastic recycling due to record budget deficits. A year and a half later, the city has reversed course and decided to restore its full recycling program.
This remarkable turnaround is due in part to a greater recognition that recycling is more cost-effective than some observers originally thought."
Natural Resources Defense Council
"Ten Reforms for Making New York City's Recycling Program More Cost-Effective"
The New York Times
"Recycling Offers a Cleaner, Cheaper Solution Than Incineration"
Image courtesy of www.finetune.org
Of Landfills and Packaging
General Recycling Facts
The US population discards each year 16,000,000,000 diapers, 1,600,000,000 pens, 2,000,000,000 razor blades, 220,000,000 car tires, and enough aluminum to rebuild the US commercial air fleet four times over.About one-third of an average dump is made up of packaging material!
Out of every $10 spent buying things, $1 (10%) goes for packaging that is thrown away. Packaging represents about 65% of household trash.
Between 5 and 15% of what we throw away contains hazardous substances.
BuyRecycled.com
Recycling Facts
Pacebutler Recycling Blog
Recycling Facts
Oberlin College Recycling Program
Recycling Facts
Image courtesy of ec.europa.eu
Pacebutler Can Help You with Cell Phone Recycling
Lens Sponsor
4 Easy Steps To Keep Your Cell Phones Away From The Landfill:1. Use the Purchase Price List to find the buyback value of your phones.
2. Print a free FedEx Pre-paid Shipping Label so we can pay the shipping.
3. Box up your phone handsets and batteries (no accessories, chargers, etc.) then ship with our pre-paid label.
4. Get Cash! We'll issue your check within 4 business days of receiving your cell phones
We pay as much as $50 for each cell phone.
Recycling Paper Helps Save the Rainforests
Paper Recycling Facts
Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper a year; about 680 pounds per person.The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from trees. This amounts to about 2,000,000,000 trees per year!
Every day, American businesses generate enough paper waste to circle the Earth 20 times.
In addition, every year each American household receives an average of 1.5 tree's growth of bulk mail advertising - commonly known as "junk mail."
Recycling Fun Facts
Recycling Guide
Recycling Facts - UK
Image courtesy of www.johnsonsupply.com
Paper Economics
Paper Recycling Facts
Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!The 17 trees saved (above) can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide.
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
Paper Recycling on Wikipedia
Earth911
The Facts About Paper and Paper Recycling
Image courtesy of www.ikuinen.com
The Paper Trail
Paper Recycling Facts
Americans dump 180 million tons of garbage annually - more than 40% of which is paper. High-grade printing, copying and writing paper is the largest single component in a landfill.We throw away enough office and writing paper annually to build a wall 12 feet high stretching from Los Angeles to New York.
The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years.
A Recycling Revolution
Recycling Facts
Waste Online
Paper recycling information sheet
Image courtesy of www.lenntech.com
Our Love Affair with Bottled Water
Plastic Recycling Facts
In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each, but only recycled an average of 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills. Plastic bottles take 700 years before they begin to decompose in a landfill.A typical family consumes 182 gallons of pop, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk, and 26 gallons of bottled water a year. That's a lot of containers - make sure they're recycled!
According to Earth911, if everyone in NYC gave up water bottles for one week they would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled; one month would save 112 million bottles and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
Plastic Recycling on Wikipedia
The Resourceful School Project
Fun Facts To Know and Share
Recycle Now
Recycling Information - UK
Image courtesy of chunkymountains.blogspot.com
More Plastic Recycling Facts
Plastic Recycling Facts
Over 1.3 billion pounds of post-consumer plastics are recycled annually in the U.S.The U.S. annually recycles 18% of all of its plastic bottles and containers and 36% of its soft drink bottles.
Over 23 million lbs. of plastic foam peanuts are recycled annually; that's enough to fill up the Empire State Building.
The U.S. post consumer plastics industry employs over 52,000 workers.
Ecology Center
Seven Misconceptions about Plastic and Plastic Recycling
Styrofoam Recycling
"Recycle Styrofoam: Industry makes reuse more cost-effective and convenient"
Aluminum Can Recyling - "The Perfect Model"
Metal Recycling Facts
Aluminum can recycling is the best "closed-loop" recycling model there is. Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of of a new can in 2 weeks, and be back in the grocery shelf within 60 days!An aluminum can may be recycled repeatedly. There is no limit to the number of times an aluminum can can be recycled.
Canland Recycling
Facts About Recycling
Image courtesy of www.sunshinedisposal.com
Steel Power
Metal Recycling Facts
Every ton of recycled steel saves 2,500 lbs. of iron ore, 1,000 lbs. of coal, and 40 lbs. of limestone.A 60-watt light bulb can be run for over a day on the amount of energy saved by recycling 1 pound of steel.
In one year in the United States, the recycling of steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes!
Action Recycling Center
Metal Recycling
Image courtesy of www.wasterec.co.uk
A Sea of Obsolete Hardware
E-Waste Recycling Facts
According to the US National Safety Council, there are now over 300 million obsolete computers in the US. It is estimated that there are over a billion personal computers in the world at presentOn 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.
Basel Action Network (BAN)
California Integrated Waste Management Board
What is E-Waste?
How Much Can be Recycled?
E-Waste Recycling Facts
"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."A leading Belgian recycling company, however, Umicore Precious Metals Refining claims that less than half of 1% of the e-waste they recycle is unusable. Read more in the Washington post: "The Afterlife of Cell Phones" linked below.
Umicore: Precious Metals Refining
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)
/www.vitalgraphics.net/waste/html_file/36-37_ewaste.html">The Great E-Waste Recycling Debate
For more information on computer recycling and the various take-back and recycling programs of PC manufacturers, please visit:
Recycle Your Computer on Squidoo
Image courtesy of www.albertacomputerrecycling.ca
Did You Recycle Your Cell Phones?
Cell Phones Recycling Facts
In a study conducted by iSuppli Corporation during the last quarter of 2007, the following facts emerged:- 36.8% stored their cell phones away
- 10.2% threw their cell phone away or declared it lost or stolen.
- 9.4% recycled their cell phones
Applied to the entire year, with an estimated 100 million cell phones retired, that means 10 million cell phones rotting away n the landfills leaching dangerous chemicals and 37 million used cell phones gathering dust in the drawers of America today. And that's only from 2007!
iSuppli Corporation Q4 Cell Phone Recycling Report
An Ocean of Used Cell Phones
Cell Phone Recycling Facts
There could be over 700 million used cell phones in the US today. Every year, Americans add 100 million more to this avalanche of used cell phones.According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), if all the 100 million cell phones discarded last year were recycled, enough energy savings would have been made to power up 194,000 US homes for one full year. Imagine that.
Environmental Proection Agency (EPA)
"Recycle Your Cell Phone. It's an Easy Call"
The Washington Post
"The Afterlife of Cell Phones"
Cell Phone Recycling on Squidoo
Cell Phone Recycling? Absolutely!
Recycle Your Old or Used Cell Phones with Pacebutler
Lens Sponsor
4 Easy Steps To Keep Your Cell Phones Away From The Landfill:1. Use the Purchase Price List to find the buyback value of your phones.
2. Print a free FedEx Pre-paid Shipping Label so we can pay for the shipping.
3. Box up your phone handsets and batteries (no accessories, chargers, etc.) then ship with our pre-paid label.
4. Get Cash! We'll issue your check within 4 business days of receiving your cell phones
We pay as much as $50 for each cell phone.
Reader Feedback
CosmeticMom wrote...
Great Lens! I wonder why we keep talking about "Saving The Planet" but no one is hardly talking about recycling more in the USA? My Grandmother was recycling back in the '60's!!! Most of our Older Citizen's have been through some type of Depression and have excellent ways to "Re-use" any & everything! Kudo's to my Grandmother for being "Green" years ahead of her time!
Posted April 22, 2009
tokyobabydoll wrote...
Great lens, very informative. Awareness is the key to any campaign. :)
Posted November 06, 2008
RedSportNiac wrote...
Sometime I wonder why should we spend billions of dollars discover the unknown zone in the outer space when our known problem still can't be solved. Are we going to seek for more problem so that we could accumulate more unsolved problems. Is that what human being suppose to do? Let our future generation see how intelligent we are finding new problems after problems so that they can keep finding ways to solve them to excite their brain.
Posted July 13, 2008
ricky-macleod wrote...
hi im from the uk and we need to do more to recycle waste this is a really good lens very informative welldone 5 stars ill favorite and lens roll this and share your facts i also have a lens on recycling but this one is the dogs b****cks
Posted June 23, 2008
Recycling Facts Across The Web
- What About Ijunk? | Newsweek.com
- What happen to old electronics? The cell phone that's not a computer, the GPS that's not a phone, the squarely three-dimensional television, the videotape rewinder? A recent survey by the classified-ads Web site Kijiji.com says that 70 percent of Americans simply keep old hardware around. Still, between 300 million to 400 million electronic items are sent to the landfills every year, in the United States.
- How To Achieve Genuine Energy Independence| Newsweek
- "recycling today just takes large products-computers-and turns them into pieces of steel and plastic, and eventually those pieces get thrown into landfills. But we now know how to make things so that nothing is wasted-every component is either biodegradable or totally recyclable. Things go back to the earth or they go back into the manufacturing cycle."
Great Stuff on Amazon
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better--say, edible grocery bags! Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things is a manifesto, a handbook that should be required reading for every astute businessman and environmental activist out there.
Amazon Price: $18.15 (as of 11/10/2009) 
Explore More
My Other Lenses and Sites
Recycling! Recycling!This is my main gateway lens focused on recycling and environmental issues. Content summaries and previews of all my recycling lenses are found here, along with links to relevant web pages outside of Squidoo.
Recycle Your Computer
For the Latest Updates and Information on Recycling
Pacebutler Recycling Blog
by MichaelArms
My name is Michael Arms and I work for Pacebutler Corporation, the cell phone Recycling and Refurbishing company. We are currently involved in helping... (more)
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