United States Environmental Protection Agency
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United States Environmental Protection Agency Recycling Basics http://www2.epa.gov/recycle/recycling-basics Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products. Recycling can benefit your community and the environment. Benefits of Recycling Reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators; Conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals; Prevents pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials; Saves energy; Reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change; Helps sustain the environment for future generations; Helps create new well-paying jobs in the recycling and manufacturing industries in the United States. Is recycling worthwhile? http://waste.supportportal.com/link/portal/23002/23023/Article/19159/Is-recycling-worthwhile Recycling is one of the best environmental success stories of the late 20th century. Recycling, which includes composting, diverted 85 million tons of material away from disposal in 2010, up from 15 million tons in 1980. Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. As a matter of fact, collecting recyclable materials is just the first step in a series of actions that generate a host of financial, environmental, and societal returns. There are several key benefits to recycling. - Protects and expands U.S. manufacturing jobs and increases U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace. - Reduces the need for landfilling and incineration. - Saves energy and prevents pollution caused by the extraction and processing of virgin materials and the manufacture of products using virgin materials. - Decreases emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change. - Conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals. - Helps sustain the environment for future generations. Recycling not only makes sense from an environmental standpoint, but also makes good financial sense. For example, creating aluminum cans from recycled aluminum is far less energy-intensive, and less costly, than mining the raw materials and manufacturing new cans from scratch. Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2011 http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/MSWcharacterization_508_053113_fs.pdf Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the United States: Infographic http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/infographic/index.htm 11 Facts about Recycling http://www.dosomething.org/actnow/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-recycling 1. The average person generates over 4 pounds of trash every day and about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year. 2. In 2009, Americans produced enough trash to circle the Earth 24 times. 3. Over 75% of waste is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it. 4. We generate 21.5 million tons of food waste each year. If we composted that food, it would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road. 5. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to listen to a full album on your iPod. Recycling 100 cans could light your bedroom for two whole weeks. 6. Recycling aluminum cans saves 95% of the energy used to make alum cans from new material. 7. Americans throw away 25,000,000 plastic bottles every hour. 8. Over 87% of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs. 9. In 2009, Americans threw away almost 9 million tons of glass. That could fill enough tractor trailers to stretch from NYC to LA (and back!). 10. In 2010, paper recycling had increased over 89% since 1990. 11. If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we could save about 25 million trees each year. Massachusetts Institute of Technology http://web.mit.edu/facilities/environmental/recyc-facts.html Recycling Facts The average American throws away 3.5 pounds of trash per day. The average American uses 650 lbs. of paper per year. One ton of paper from recycled pulp saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 7000 gallons of water, 4200 kWh (enough to heat a home for half a year), 390 gallons of oil, and prevents 60 pounds of air pollutants. Producing recycled white paper creates 74 percent less air pollution, 35 percent less water pollution, and 75 percent less processed energy than producing paper from virgin fibers. Recycling one ton of cardboard saves over nine cubic yards of landfill space. Number of landfills in operation in 1978: 14,000; in 1988: 7,924; in 2001: 1,858; in 2006: 1,754. Recycling one ton of newspaper saves 15 trees. Every ton of newspaper recycled saves 4100 kWh or enough energy to power a TV for 31 hours. Recycling a soda can saves 96 percent of the energy used to make a can from ore and produces 95 percent less air pollution and 97 percent less water pollution. One gallon of oil, when reprocessed, can generate enough energy to meet the electricity needs of a home for half a day The plastic used in one toner cartridge contains about a half quart of oil. Here’s how to help Try to carry a bottle, aluminum can, or plastic containers, until you find a recycling bin. Empty and clean all food and beverage containers before placing them in recycling bins. Do not contaminate the recycling bins by dropping trash into recycling bins. Compiled from the EPA Business Guide for Reducing Solid Waste, Forty Ways to Make Government Purchasing Green and other sources. Natural Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/gsteps.asp Recycling 101 Recycling is one of the most feel-good and useful environmental practices around. The benefits go way beyond reducing piles of garbage -- recycling protects habitat and biodiversity, and saves energy, water, and resources such as trees and metal ores. Recycling also cuts global warming pollution from manufacturing, landfilling and incinerating. But recycling means a lot more than bringing your newspapers and cans to the curb. Truly successful recycling involves minimizing waste along the entire life cycle of a product, from acquiring raw materials to manufacturing, using and disposing of a product. Most environmental impacts associated with the products we buy occur before we open the package, so buying products made from recycled materials is just as important as sorting waste into the right bins. And when we reduce the amount of stuff we buy in the first place, and reuse what we can, we reduce the environmental harm associated with acquiring raw materials and manufacturing. http://www.nrdc.org/enterprise/greeningadvisor/wm-recycling.asp Recycling Recycling is one of the most common of all environmentally beneficial activities. It is relatively simple and painless and a great way to involve staff at all levels in your company’s environmental priorities. Recycling protects habitat and saves energy, water, and resources such as trees and metal ores. By recycling paper, cardboard, metals, plastics, and glass, you can help reduce the harmful impacts associated with the extraction of the raw materials used to make these resources, including greenhouse gas emissions, oil spills, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution. Manufacturing products from recovered materials is less polluting than producing the same products from newly harvested or extracted virgin materials. Making paper from recycled fibers, for example, uses less energy and water and produces less air and water pollution than making paper from trees. Despite the obvious benefits and wide acceptance of recycling, it can sometimes be challenging to design an effective and efficient program. Many local governments offer technical assistance to help businesses implement a recycling program or improve an existing one. Contact your local government’s recycling or solid waste department to learn more about the services it provides. Your current waste haulers may offer information as well. Also consider joining the EPA’s free WasteWise program, which provides members with several benefits, including a technical assistance team that can help you conduct a waste audit, reduce waste, and implement a recycling program. Recycling Can Save Money Recycling and composting can save money through avoided disposal and hauling costs. Many recyclable items can also be sold on the market and be a source of revenue, although market conditions vary by material and by region. A waste audit will help your company identify these potential savings and revenue opportunities. Many companies have realized savings through their efforts to increase recycling. The Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, New York, implemented a variety of recycling and waste reduction measures, including recycling its cardboard and plastic wastes. These measures reduced the company’s annual waste generation by more than 50 percent, saving it more than $25,000 a year in hauling costs. The San Diego Wild Animal Park generates more than 23,000 tons of waste annually but discards only 4 percent of this waste in landfills. The park implemented a comprehensive composting program for organic waste and has distributed recycling containers throughout its 1,800 acres, in addition to many other programs. In total, these efforts save more than $1 million in tipping and hauling fees each year. http://www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/gsteps.asp Recycling Facts The U.S. currently recycles 32.5 percent of its waste, compared with about five percent in 1970. According to the EPA, recycling cuts global warming pollution by the equivalent of removing 39.6 million passenger cars from the road. Before 1973, no curbside recycling programs existed in the United States. By 2006, about 8,660 curbside programs had sprouted up across the nation. 31 percent of plastic soft drink bottles, 45 percent of aluminum cans and 67 percent of all major appliances are now recycled. Keep America Beautiful: Recycling Facts & Stats http://www.kab.org/site/PageServer?pagename=recycling_facts_and_stats Recycling in General Overall, Americans recovered 34% of waste generated in 2009.