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Each year Americans discard 18 billion disposable diapers, enough to construct a trail stretching from the Earth to the Moon (240,000 miles away) and back again seven times.
Americans throw away enough glass bottles and jars to fill the 1,350-foot twin towers of New York's World Trade Center every two weeks.
Consumers and industry throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet every three months.
Each recycled aluminum can saves the energy equivalent of half a gallon of gas.
Americans go through 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. That is one for every resident in the state of Iowa.
The United States discards enough iron and steel every day to supply the needs of all the nation's automakers.
An automatic dishwasher generally uses less water than washing dishes by hand. A dishwasher uses 11 gallons of water; hand washing uses about 16 gallons.
The average shower uses 12 to 14 gallons of water; the average bath, in a tub half full, uses 20 gallons.
The average American uses 60 to 80 gallons of water a day.
In home usage alone, each American uses the energy equivalent of 22 barrels of oil a year-two and a half times the amount the Japanese use.
If every American family recycled their newspapers, approximately 500,000 trees would be saved weekly.

Taken from The Derrick/The News-Herald Newspaper: Friday, October 30, 1998. Page 12.