Recycling Facts

  • The US is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year.  This means that 5% of the world's people generate 40% of the world's waste.
  • 35% of what goes into a landfill today is yard and wood trimmings and food waste.  These materials could be diverted and converted into compost.
  • For every product purchased, nearly 10% of the finished product contains packing material which is normally dumped. But if this packaging material is recycled, it will save tons of paper, lots of energy, money, human resource, and time.
  • Up to 70% of the waste coming from commercial food processing operations is recyclable.
  • On average, it costs $30 per ton to recycle trash, $50 to send it to a landfill, and $65 to $75 to incinerate it.
  • We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans every year. And a can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now! 
  • Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper a year; about 680 pounds per person. 
  • A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill. 
  • On average, each one of us produces 4.4 pounds of solid waste each day. This adds up to almost a ton of trash per person, per year. 
  • Rain forests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute! 
  • Recycling 1 ton of plastic saves 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space.







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