METALS
* Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours -- or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.
* More aluminum goes into beverage cans than any other product.
* Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within six weeks.
* During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans are made.
* An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!
* Aluminum can manufacturers have been making cans lighter -- in 1972 each pound of aluminum produced 22 cans; today it yields 29 cans.
* Every ton of recycled steel saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 of coal, and 40 pounds of limestone.
PAPER
* To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.
* During World War II when raw materials were scarce, 33% of all paper was recycled. After the war, this number decreased sharply.
* Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.
* Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper a year; about 680 pounds per person.
* In 1993, nearly 36,000,000 tons of paper were recovered in the U.S. --twice as much in 1980.
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MISCELLANEOUS
* More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.
* Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct!
*McDonald's saves 68,000,000 pounds of packaging per year just by pumping soft drink syrup directly from the delivery truck into tanks in the restaurant, instead of shipping the syrup in cardboard boxes!
* The largest environmental organization in the world is the National Wildlife Federation. It has 5,600,000 members!
* Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute!
* One-third of the water used in most homes is flushed down the toilet.
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GLASS
* Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of these jars are recyclable!
* The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.
* A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill.
* Mining and transporting raw materials for glass produces about 385 pounds of waste for every ton of glass that is made. If recycled glass is substituted for half of the raw materials, the waste is cut by more than 80%.
By: Valerie Rodriguez
From: http://www.recycling-revolution.com/recycling-facts.html
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