Aluminum
  • Aluminum can be recycled using 5% of the energy used to make the original product.
  • Recycling a single aluminum can saves enough energy to run a television or computer for three hours.
  • Americans throw enough aluminum away every three months to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.
  • Using recycled aluminum instead of virgin materials decreases water and air pollution and energy use by 95%.
  • You can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one new one.
Glass
  • Recycling 1 glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for 4 hours.
  • Americans throw away over 11 million tons of glass bottles and jars each year.
  • Recycling saves 25-30% of the energy used to make glass from virgin materials.
Plastics
  • Americans throw away enough plastic bottles each year to circle the earth four times.
  • Every hour, we throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles (22 billion plastic bottles per year).
  • Five recycled plastic bottles make enough fiberfill to stuff a ski jacket.
Steel
  • Every ton of steel recycled saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and
    120 pounds of limestone.
  • Enough energy is saved each year by recycling steel to supply Los Angeles with electricity for
    almost 10 years.
  • The steel industry recycles nearly 19 billion steel cans into new products each year – about 600 cans recycled every second!
Paper
  • Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees.
  • Every Sunday, the U.S. wastes nearly 90% of all the recyclable newspapers. This wastes about 500,000 trees.
  • One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year.
  • Americans use more than 67 million tons of paper per year, or 580 pounds per person.
  • More than 1/3 of all paper fiber used to make paper comes from recycled paper.
Composting Facts
  • Almost one third of the waste stream by weight are organic materials like food, leaves, and grass.
  • Each person in Massachusetts creates about 530 pounds of food and yard waste each year. If all that material was piled onto a football field, the pile would be 2,067 feet high, higher than Mt. Wachusett.
  • If wasted food was a country, it would be the third largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, after the US and China.
  • A 1000-square-foot area of lawn can generate up to 500 pounds of grass clippings in
    a single growing season.
  • Use of compost can reduce the need and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Junk Mail
  • Americans receive almost 4.5 million tons of junk mail per year.
  • About 44% of junk mail is never opened.
  • Every person in the US receives the equivalent of one and a half trees per year or
    approximately 560 pieces of junk mail per year.
  • The average person gets 1.5 personal letter per week compared to 10.8 pieces of junk mail.
  • The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year – mostly packaging and junk mail.
  • Approximately 13% of the solid waste mass that makes up our landfills are paper and paperboard.
  • 100 million trees are ground up each year to produce junk mail.
  • Your name is typically worth 3 to 20 cents each time it is sold.