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Incinerators reduce the amount of trash that goes in by
about 70%. The problem: The leftover 30% is highly toxic ash, which still
has to be buried. The emissions are dangerous, too. According to one source,
"Emissions from incinerator stacks have been known to include up to
27 heavy metals, acid gases, carbon monoxide, and dioxins." 10
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In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600
times his or her adult weight in garbage. If you add it up, this means that
a 150 pound adult will leave a legacy of 90,000 pounds of trash for his
or her children. 13
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We can use old paper to make new paper. or just keep harvesting
trees for virgin pulp. Every day, America cuts down two million trees- but
throws away about 42 million newspapers. 14
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If the Pilgrims had 6-packs, we'd still have the plastic
rings from them today. 23b
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A person uses two pine trees' worth of paper products each
year. 35b
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It takes about four times as much energy to make steel from
virgin ore as it does to make the same steel from scrap. 36
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Glass makes up about 8% of America's municipal garbage.
41
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Every day, Americans buy about 62 million newspapers. and
throw out around 44 million of them. That means the equivalent of about
500,000 trees is dumped into landfills every week. 46
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When seemingly "safe" yard waste is buried in
landfills- where there isn't much oxygen- it releases explosive methane
gas, a powerful "greenhouse gas" that contributes to air pollution
and global warming. Methane and other toxins can also condense into liquid
and leach into groundwater. 73
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Throwing oil in the trash- even in an airtight container-
is just like pouring it on the ground. The oil will seep out and leach into
groundwater when containers are crushed. 90
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Making one ton of recycled paper uses only about 60% of
the energy needed to make a ton of virgin paper. 15
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Using recycled glass lowers the melting temperature needed
to make new glass, saving up to 32% of the energy needed for production.
15
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Trees "eat" CO2. The more paper we
recycle, the fewer trees we cut down. The end result? Less CO2
means cleaner air. 16
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Recycling a ton of office paper keeps 7,000 gallons of water
out of the paper making process. And it cuts down on bleaching, which means
less dioxins in the water. 17
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Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make
the material from scratch. That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled
material with the same energy it takes to make one can out of new
material. 32
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If we only recycled one-tenth of the tin cans we now throw
away, we'd save about 3.2 billion of them every year. That's a lot of steel,
mining waste and landfill space. 34
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Recycling steel and tin cans saves 74% of the energy used
to produce them from raw materials. 34
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Every minute of the day, more than 9,000 tin cans are recovered
from the trash with magnets. 34b
-
We save over a ton of resources for every ton of glass recycled.
That's 1,330 pounds of sand, 433 pounds of soda ash, 433 pounds of limestone,
and 151 pounds of feldspar. 40
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Recycling printing and writing paper saves 33% of the energy
needed to make it from trees. It conserves resources, too. For example,
every time we recycle a ton of it, we save 7,000 gallons of water. 48
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Making the paper pulp used in corrugated cardboard creates
sulfur dioxide, a gas that causes acid rain. Recycling cuts that pollution
in half. 50
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If every household in the United States used old bags for
just one grocery shopping trip, we might save as many as 60,000 trees.
54
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If Americans recycled their phone books for a year, we could
save an estimated 650,000 tons of paper and some 2 million cubic yards of
landfill space. 57
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Tires are recycled by turning them into ground rubber "crumbs"
that are then added to asphalt for paving roads, running tracks, runways,
and playgrounds. The result: pavement life is increased four to five times.
96
E.I.C
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