The U.S. throws away around 200 million tons of garbage each day. The Average American generates about 4 pounds of garbage each day. That is approximately 1,460 pounds per person per year. Paper takes up as much as 50% of landfill space! If line up bumper to bumper, a string of garbage trucks hauling the nations daily waste could reach halfway to the moon.
The Life of Litter-Decomposition Rate of Trash
Source: The New York Times
- Paper: 2.5 months
- Orange Peel: 6 months
- Milk Carton: 5 years
- Cigarette Butt: 10 to 12 years
- Plastic Bag: 10 to 20 years
- Disposable Diaper: 75 years
- Tin Can: 100 years
- Beer Can: 200 to 500 years
- Styrofoam: never
- A fifteen year old tree produces only 700 grocery bags.
- The average person in North America uses 250 Kg (551 lb.) of paper each year. If they recycled it, each person would save about 4.6 average-sized trees.
- When 1 ton of newsprint is recycled, 3 cubic meters of landfill space is saved and 13-17 trees are spared!
- A stack of newspaper, collected for recycling and piled one meter high, saves a 10 meter tall evergreen tree.
Environmental Advantages of Recycling
Source: Garten Services Inc.
For every ton of paper recycled:
- 17 pulpwood trees are conserved.
- 500 pounds of air pollutants are not emitted.
- 12,000 gallons of processed water are conserved.
- Water pollution is reduced by 40%.
- Energy equivalent to 96 gallons of gasoline are conserved.
- Solid waste pollution is reduced.
- 5 cubic yards of landfill space is conserved.
- The amount of money to process the landfill space is conserved.
Cans and Bottles:
- The energy saved from recycling one aluminum can will run your TV for 3 hours.
- It takes 2 plastic soft drink bottles to make enough polyester fiber for a baseball cap.
- When you recycle one glass bottle, you save the amount of energy needed to light a 100 watt bulb for 4 hours.
- Americans go through 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
- The plastic from 5 soda bottles can completely insulate a ski jacket.
- Recycling a glass jar saves enough energy to light a 100 watt bulb for 4 hours.