Earth Day 2008 - R - Recycle

Todays R is Recycle. An easy way to recycle is by participating in your communities recycling program.

Some recycling facts for different Materials can be found below
ALUMINUM
Recycling one aluminum beverage can saves enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours or a tv for 2 hours.
The aluminum beverage can returns to the grocer's shelf as a new, filled can in as little as 90 days after collection, remelting, rolling, manufacturing and distribution.
An average of 113,204 aluminum cans are recycled every minute of every day.
Recycling one ton of aluminum saves 37 barrels of oil.
Recycling 125 aluminum cans saves enough energy to power one home for 1 day.
It takes 4 tons of ore to produce one ton of aluminum.

GLASS
Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for 4 hours or operate a television for 3 hours.
Producing glass from virgin materials requires 30% more energy than producing it from crushed used glass.
It takes approximately 1 million years for a glass bottle to break down in a landfill.
Unacceptable glass for recycling: ceramic cups, plates and pottery; clay garden pots; laboratory glass; crystal and opaque drinking glasses; mirrors; windshields and window glass; heat-resistant ovenwear; light bulbs; drinking glasses; hazardous glass containers, i.e. acid containers.
In the U.S. today, 34% of all glass containers are recycled.
Most bottles and jars contain at least 25% recycled glass.
Glass never wears out - it can be recycled forever.
Recycling glass saves 25-32% of the energy used to make glass.
Glass containers save 9 gallons of fuel (oil) for every ton of glass recycled.

PAPER
Americans use over 67,000,000 tons of paper each year, or 600 pounds per person.
It takes more than 500,000 trees to produce the newspapers Americans read each Sunday, yet only 30% of all newspapers are recycled.
Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, 7,000 gallons of water and 4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity - enough energy to power the average American home for 5 months.
Producing recycled paper requires about 60% of the energy used to make paper from virgin wood pulp.
Recycling 1 ton of newspaper saves 15 mature trees.
Every day, Americans buy 62 million newspapers and throw out 44 million. That's the equivalent of dumping 500,000 trees into a landfill every week.
If everyone in the U.S. recycled just 1/10th of their newsprint, we would save the estimated equivalent of about 25 million trees a year.
In the manufacturing process of recycled paper: 74% less air pollution is generated, 35% less water pollution is generated, 58% less water is required, 64% less energy is required.
One ton of high-grade recyclable paper can substitute for approximately 3 tons of wood in making new paper products.
Every year more than 900 million trees are cut down to provide raw materials for American paper and pulp mills.

PLASTIC
Plastics require 100 to 400 years to break down in a landfill.
Producing new plastic from recycled material uses only two-thirds of the energy required to manufacture it from raw materials.
For every 7 trucks needed to deliver paper grocery bags to the store, only 1 is needed to carry the same number of plastic grocery bags.
By using plastic in packaging, American product manufacturers save enough energy each year to power a city of 1 million homes for 3 ½ years.
As much as 40% of selected plastic parts from damaged or discarded cars are repaired and reused.
Over 1.5 billion pounds of post-consumer plastic bottles were recycled during 1999, accounting for 22% (by weight) of all plastic bottles produced in the U.S.
PET bottles (soda & water) and HDPE bottles (milk, laundry detergent) are the most commonly collected plastic materials in community recycling programs.
95% of all plastic bottles in the U.S. market are manufactured from PET or HDPE. 56% of recycled PET finds a market in the manufacture of fiber (carpet & clothing). 29% of HDPE recycled bottles go into making new bottles and 18% goes into the plastic pipe industry.
Recycling 1 ton of plastic can save 1-2 thousand gallons of gas.
Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.

STEEL
Recycling tin and steel cans saves between 60-74% of the energy used to produce them from raw materials.
1 ton of recycled steel saves the energy equivalent of 3.6 barrels of oil, and 1.49 tons of iron ore over the production of new steel.
Steel cans were recycled at the rate of 58% in 2001.
The amount of steel recovered through recycled packaging in 2001 (nearly 1.5 million tons) would yield enough steel to build 185,000 steel framed homes.
In 2001, nearly 2 million tons of steel was recovered from recycled appliances.
The steel from the more than 39 million appliances recycled last year yielded enough steel to build about 160 stadiums the size of the new Pittsburgh Steelers stadium.
In 2001, there were 26 cars recycled every minute across the U.S.
Each year steel recycling saves the energy equivalent to electrically power about 1/5th of the households in the U.S. (or about 18 million homes) for 1 year.
Every ton of steel recycled saves 2,500 lbs. of iron ore, 1,400 lbs. of coal and 120 lbs. of limestone.
Annually, enough energy is saved by recycling steel to supply Los Angeles with electricity for almost 10 years.
You can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make 1 new one.

BATTERIES
Battery acid is recycled by converting it to sodium sulfate for laundry detergent, glass and textile manufacturing.
GENERAL
The average person throws away 4 pounds of garbage PER DAY.
Paper is the most common item found in our trash.
Product packaging accounts for 1/3 of our trash.
Solid waste disposal is the third largest municipal government expense after police protection and education.
The nation's annual generation of municipal solid waste rose steadily from 88 million tons in 1960 to 232 million tons in 2002.
Recycling all of your home's waste newsprint, cardboard, glass and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 850 lbs. a year.
The number of landfills that were in operation in 1978:14,000; in 2003: 1,500.

Consumer Electronics:
Once Computers have finished their useful lives they are paperweights filled with all sorts of Nasty stuff such as Toxic chemicals, carcinogens and heavy metals There are various recycling options some have a cost but you want to make sure that the Recycler is reputable and not just stripping out what they wan and dumping the other stuff in a landfill. If your computer still has some life then you can donate it. Companies like RetroBox and FreeGeek build computers out of salvaged parts; the latter has a list of like-minded organizations that can be a good starting place for recycling or reusing your machine.
Motor Oil:
Oil from one oil change if improperly disposed and not recycled can contaminate one million gallons of fresh water, which is a year's supply for 50 people.

For more information on Recycling Automotive you can go to earth911.org
Recycle Kit-1 & Recycle Kit-2