Recycling has its own national day
America Recycles Day is a nationally recognized day of service. It is sponsored by Keep America Beautiful, and celebrates and promotes recycling throughout the United States. Events are held across the country and feature demonstrations, neighborhood clean-ups, yard-sales and celebrations.
Aluminum recycling program is one of the most successful
The Aluminum recycling program in the United States is one of the most successful to date. More than 100 thousand cans were recycled every minute in 2010, adding up to a total of 53 billion aluminum cans. By contrast, an estimated one billion dollars worth of cans made their way into landfills in the same year. The life-cycle of an aluminum can is about 60 days, which means it is bought, used, recycled, and made back into another can in two short months.
Making glass from recycled glass saves energy
Making glass is an expensive and labor-intensive process. Glass made from raw materials includes the use of large of amounts of sand, soda ash, limestone and feldspar. For every ton of glass products that are recycled, a ton of these natural resources are conserved for future generations. Making glass from recycled-glass saves energy because the recycled glass melts at a lower temperature.
Only 50% of paper is recycled
About 90% of Americans have access to curbside or municipal paper-recycling programs, but only 50% of paper is actually recycled. Most of the paper mills in the United States now rely on recycled paper to make new paper. It takes more than 20 trees to make a ton of paper. Using recycled scrap-paper saves 7,000 gallons of water per ton of paper produced. This amounts to a 60% energy savings when making paper from paper, instead of virgin wood-pulp.
Americans use more plastic products than any industrialized nation
Plastic recycling in the United States is growing by leaps and bounds, but it still has a long way to go to be truly successful. Americans use more plastic products than any industrialized nation. In 2009, Americans generated almost 30-million tons of plastic waste, but only around 6% was recycled. Plastic bottles are recycled most often, at a rate of 28%. Using recycled plastic instead of raw materials conserves energy by 84%.
Most electronics are recyclable
About 25% of broken electronics were recycled in 2009, including computers, televisions and cell-phones. Many electronics consist of multiple recyclable components including, metals, glass and plastics.
Recycling is an easy way to reduce carbon emissions, preserve natural resources and reduce energy consumption.
