This Is Green

A Couple of Recycling Quick Facts

Jan Manon — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:40:09 +0000

If Americans recycled every phone book each year, an estimated 650,000 tons of paper could be saved.
Recycling half the world’s paper would save 20 million acres of forest land.
Recycling one stack of newspapers about 6 feet tall saves the life of one tree 35 feet tall.
Recycling approximately 1 ton of newspaper saves 17 trees.
The EPA has found that making paper from recycled materials results in 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution. This means that every ton of recycled paper keeps almost 60 pounds of pollutants out of the atmosphere that would have been produced if the paper had been manufactured from virgin resources.
Every ton of recycled paper saves approximately 4 barrels of oil or 4,200 kilowatt hours of energy which is enough energy to heat and air-condition the average North American home for almost 6 months.
Recycled paper is made to the same standards as paper from virgin pulp. Moreover, recycled paper has features which make it more desirable than virgin paper, such as being more opaque, dense, and flexible.
For every 15,000 tons of old newspaper recycled annually, 30 jobs are created to collect the paper, 40 jobs are created to process the paper, and 75 jobs are required to manufacture the newsprint.
Plastic soda bottles can become carpet fiber or park benches.
Rubber from used tires can be used for floor mats, or as an additive in asphalt.
A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days. There is no limit to the amount of times aluminum can be recycled.
Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours, or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.
The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
A typical family consumes 182 gallons of soda, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk, and 26 gallons of bottled water a year. That’s a lot of containers so please make sure they are recycled.