Recycling Facts

This article is full of interesting and helpful recycling facts. They can help you add some flavor to your reports, spice up your presentations, or be just for fun.

• In the United States alone there are 4 million plastic bottles used every hour.

• The average person generates over 4 pounds of trash every day and about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year.

• Metal is the easiest “element” to recycle and it is used in everything.
  

  The average time taken by plastic bottles to decompose in a landfill is close to 700 years.

• We generate 21.5 million tons of food waste each year.

• Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees.

• Over 75% of waste is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it.

• Aluminum cans can be recycled and ready to use in just 6 weeks.

• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough electricity to run a TV for 3 hours.

• Glass is 100% recyclable and can be used again and again.

• Cigarette butts and filters take 12 years to biodegrade.

• Recycling one ton of cardboard saves over nine cubic yards of landfill space.

• It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper.

• Each year, Americans throw out enough soda pop cans bottles to reach to the moon and back—twenty times.

• It takes a 15-year-old tree to produce 700 grocery bags.

• Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose.

What do you say about these recycling facts?