Fun Facts About Recycling for Children
Recycling conserves natural resources. It saves energy, landfill space, clean air and clean water. Recycling also can save money and create jobs. Americans produce nearly 4.5 pounds of solid waste per person per day, or nearly 1 ton per year. Recycling just a portion of that waste results in economic and ecologic savings.
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Numbers
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Recycling reduces greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report by Resourceful Schools, in 2006, the 82 million tons recycled nationally prevented the release of roughly 49.7 million metric tons of carbon, about the annual pollution of 39 million cars. That same year, almost 7 million tons of recycled metal eliminated the same amount of greenhouse gases as removing more than 5 million cars from the road for one year. For every ton of recycled paper, we save the energy of 185 gallons of gas.
Energy
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Energy Star qualified bulbs use 75 percent less energy than standard bulbs. If every U.S. household replaced one regular light bulb with an Energy Star bulb, the savings of $600 million in energy costs could power more than 3 million homes for a year.
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Aluminum
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A television can run for three hours on energy saved by one recycled aluminum can. "During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans are made," reports Santa Rosa County in Florida. That is 350,000 cans each minute. A recycled can becomes part of a new one in less than six weeks, with no limit how many of times a can may be recycled. Recycling Revolution reports that the nearly 80 million Hershey's Kisses each day use enough aluminum foil to cover more than 50 acres of space, or almost 40 football fields. Many people do not realize all that foil is recyclable.
Paper
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More than 36 percent of the fiber used in U.S. paper products is recycled. More than 53 percent of paper consumed in the U.S. was recycled in 2006, recovering a record 53.5 million tons. It takes more than 500,000 trees to produce the Sunday paper each week. That means recycling all newspapers could save 250 million trees a year.
Plastic
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Americans use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, discarding most of these. That equaled 38 billion plastic water bottles in 2006 alone. Recycling plastic saves twice the energy of burning it and protects sea creatures, nearly 1 million of which die each year from plastic garbage that ends up in our oceans.
Glass
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Each month, discarded recyclable glass bottles and jars would fill up a giant skyscraper. The energy from one glass bottle can run a fluorescent light bulb for 20 hours. Glass bottles take more than 4,000 years to decompose, or even longer in landfills. If we use recycled glass, production waste reduces by more than 80 percent.
Motor Oil
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Motor oil gets dirty but does not wear out, so if recycled and re-refined, it is usable multiple times, reducing reliance on foreign oil imports. If it is improperly disposed of, however, it contaminates up to 2 million gallons of fresh water.
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References
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- Photo Credit a bottle of water on the beach image by timur1970 from Fotolia.com
