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The nation’s overall recycling rate has grown from 11% to 27% in the past 10 years. |
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There are over 7,500 recycling programs, and 3,000 yard waste composting programs in the U.S. |
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Every minute an average of 113,204 aluminum beverage cans are recycled. |
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The American public throws away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire US commercial air fleet every 3 months. |
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If the Pilgrims had used aluminum cans at the first Thanksgiving, the cans would still be around. |
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Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water. |
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Americans use more than 67 million tons of paper per year, or 580 pounds per person. |
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America's daily use of computer paper could go around the world 40 times. |
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It takes more than 500,000 trees to make the newspapers Americans use in one Sunday. |
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The steel industry recycles nearly 19 billion steel cans into new products each year - about 600 cans recycled every second! |
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Annually, enough energy is saved by recycling steel to supply the city of Los Angeles with almost a decade worth of electricity. |
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It is estimated that if all aerosol cans were recycled in North America, there would be enough steel to make 160,000 new cars. |
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The U.S. Generates approximately 208 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) per year that’s 4.3 pounds per person per day. |
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Packaging makes up about 1/3 (by weight) of household trash and about 10% of the price of food. |
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Each year Americans throw away 25 trillion Styrofoam cups. |
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For each bag of garbage we take to the curb, industry creates the equivalent of 71 bags of waste. |
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Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail per year. About 44% of junk mail is never opened. Every person in the U.S. receives the equivalent of one and a half trees per year. |
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Nationwide, leaves and yard trimmings amount to approximately 28 million tons (or 13.4 %) of the waste stream. |
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Each year, the average person creates about 360 pounds of food and yard waste. |
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27% of all food produced in North America is wasted. |
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Factoids compiled by Environmental Systems of America |
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