10 Recycling Facts
- Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months. Environmental Defense Fund
- About 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, yet our recycling rate is just 28%. Environmental Protection Agency
- Over ½ million trees are saved each year by recycling paper in Boulder County. Eco-Cycle
- Recycling creates 6 times as many jobs as landfilling. Colorado Recycles
- Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70%, water use by 50%, and air pollution by 20%. Environmental Defense Fund
- Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for 3 hours. Eco-Cycle
- If we recycled all of the newspapers printed in the U.S. on a typical Sunday, we would save 550,000 trees--or about 26 million trees per year. California Department of Conservation
- The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year - or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years. Steel Recycling Institute
- If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 1,000 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100% recycled ones, we could save: 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space, and 155 million gallons of water. Seventh Generation Co.
- Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees, 2 barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for 6 months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space, and 60 pounds of air pollution. Trash to Cash
(Compiled by the International English Center in the Division of Continuing Education and Professional Studies at CU-Boulder)
