Posted by Amanda Shepard on 9/11/2014 to
Public Education
- At 56%, New Jersey has the highest recycling rate of all the states. We’re not surprised; many of our customers are from New Jersey and we hope to help other states reach such impressive numbers.
- Recycle or go digital: Every Sunday, the US wasted nearly 90% of the recyclable newspapers. This equates to about 500,000 trees! (source: montgomeryschools.org)
- 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. (source: benefitsofrecycling.com)
- One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year. (source: montgomeryschools.org)
- The smelly truth: A cloth diaper washed at home costs about $.03 per use, whereas a disposable diaper costs about $.22 per use. The difference adds up; A typical baby uses around 10,000 diapers – An almost $2,000 difference!
- Moving in the right direction: In 2010, paper recycling had increased over 89% since 1990. (source: dosomething.org)
- Enough plastic bottles are thrown away in the United States each year to circle the Earth four times. (source: benefitsofrecycling.com)
- Bring your own bags: It takes a 15-year-old tree to produce 700 grocery bags. (source: epa.gov)
- Do you compost? Every year we generate around 14 million tons of food waste, which is 106 pounds of food waste per person. 570,000 tons of this is composted for a 4.1% recovery rate. The rest, or 13.4 million tons, is incinerated or landfilled and occupies 6.3 million cubic yards of landfill. (source:epa.gov)
- This hits close to home: Five recycled plastic bottles make enough fiberfill to stuff a ski jacket. (source: montgomeryschools.org)
Do you know any interesting facts about recycling? Feel free to share them on our Facebook Page.