Interesting Recycling Facts

A running faucet wastes 2.5 gallons of water each minute. A dishwasher uses 11 gallons of water per use. 75 percent of all water used in the household is used in the bathroom. A toilet made in 1992 or earlier uses up to 60 percent more water per flush than newer high efficiency toilets. Turning of the tap while brushing your teeth in the morning and before bedtimes can save up to 8 gallons per day. This is a savings of 240 gallons per month.

Running your faucet for 5 minutes uses up enough energy to run a 60 watt light bulb for 14 hours. A full bath tub uses 70 gallons of water. A 5 minute shower only uses 10-25 gallons.

Interesting Recycling Facts / Paper

Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, and 4000 kilowatt hours of electricity. This is enough energy to power the average American home for 5 months. The process of recycling paper instead of making it from new materials generates 74 percent less air pollution and uses 50 percent less water. Manufacturing recycled paper uses 60 percent of the energy needed to make paper from new materials. Over 73 percent of all newspapers are recovered for recycling. About 33 percent of this is used to make newsprint the rest is used to make paperboard, tissue, or insulation. A little more than 48 percent of all office paper is recycled. This is used to make writing papers, paperboard, tissue, and insulation.

Interesting Recycling Facts / Metal

Recycling steel and tin cans saves 74 percent of the energy used to make them. Americans throw away enough aluminum every month to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet. Americans throw out enough iron and steel to continuously supply all the auto makers in the entire nation. A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces water pollution, air pollution, and mining waste by about 70 percent. When you throw away an aluminum can you waste as much energy as if you’d filled the can half full of gasoline and poured it into the ground. Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans each day.

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.

Interesting Recycling Facts / Plastic

Enough plastic is produced in the United States each year to shrink wrap Texas. In 1998 Americans used 2 billion pounds of HDPE to make plastic bottles for household products. That’s the equivalent weight of 90,000 Honda civics. Approximately 88 percent of the energy is saved when plastic is made from plastic rather than from the raw materials of gas and oil. Enough plastic bottles are thrown away in the United States each year to circle the Earth four times.