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Interesting Recycling Facts

Water

  • A running faucet wastes 2.5 gallons of water each minute.
  • A dishwasher uses 11 gallons of water per use.
  • 75 percent of all water used in the household is used in the bathroom.
  • A toilet made in 1992 or earlier uses up to 60 percent more water per flush than newer high efficiency toilets.
  • Turning of the tap while brushing your teeth in the morning and before bedtimes can save up to 8 gallons per day. This is a savings of 240 gallons per month.
  • Running your faucet for 5 minutes uses up enough energy to run a 60 watt light bulb for 14 hours.
  • A full bath tub uses 70 gallons of water. A 5 minute shower only uses 10-25 gallons.

Paper

  • Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, and 4000 kilowatt hours of electricity.  This is enough energy to power the average American home for 5 months.
  • The process of recycling paper instead of making it from new materials generates 74 percent less air pollution and uses 50 percent less water.
  • Manufacturing recycled paper uses 60 percent of the energy needed to make paper from new materials.
  • Over 73 percent of all newspapers are recovered for recycling. About 33 percent of this is used to make newsprint the rest is used to make paperboard, tissue, or insulation.
  • A little more than 48 percent of all office paper is recycled. This is used to make writing papers, paperboard, tissue, and insulation.

Metal

  • Recycling steel and tin cans saves 74 percent of the energy used to make them.
  • Americans throw away enough aluminum every month to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.
  • Americans throw out enough iron and steel to continuously supply all the auto makers in the entire nation.
  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces water pollution, air pollution, and mining waste by about 70 percent.
  • When you throw away an aluminum can you waste as much energy as if you’d filled the can half full of gasoline and poured it into the ground.
  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans each day.
  • Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 100 watt light bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, and a TV for 2 hours.

Plastic

  • Enough plastic is produced in the U.S. each year to shrink wrap Texas.
  • In 1998 Americans used 2 billion pounds of HDPE to make plastic bottles for household products. That’s the equivalent weight of 90,000 Honda civics.
  • Approximately 88 percent of the energy is saved when plastic is made from plastic rather than from the raw materials of gas and oil.
  • Enough plastic bottles are thrown away in the U.S. each year to circle the Earth four times.

Sources:
http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm
http://www.visy.com.au/
http://earth911.com/