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  1. Recycling one glass bottle saves enough electricity to light a 100 watt bulb for four hours.
  2. Every ton of glass recycled saves 1,330 pounds of sand, 433 pounds of soda, 433 pounds of limestone and 151 pounds of feldspar.
  3. Glass bottles and jars have been in our culture for about 3,000 years. We have been recycling glass for almost that long as well. Even though glass may break, the components never wear out and can be recycled almost eternally.
  4. A ton of glass made from raw materials creates 384 pounds of mining waste. Using only half recycled glass cuts down the waste by 75%.
  5. A ton of glass made from raw materials also produces almost 28 pounds of air pollution. By using recycled glass that air pollution drops by about 20%.
  6. Reusable glass containers make about 15 trips between factories and stores before being recycled.
  7. Motor oil never wears out, it just gets dirty. Oil can be recycled, re-refined and used again and again. This reduces our reliance on imported oil.
  8. More than 60% of all oil related pollution is caused by improper disposal of motor oil. One quart of motor oil can pollute 250,000 gallons of water.
  9. Manufacturing aluminum from old aluminum soda cans and other sources of used aluminum takes 95% less energy than producing aluminum from completely new materials.
  10. Recycled aluminum also cuts related air pollution associated with manufacturing (such as sulfur dioxides which creates acid rain) by 95%.
  11. North Carolina found in a 1995 study that business which collect, process and manufacture recyclables have nearly $1 billion in total estimated sales and 9,000 employees.
  12. In 1995 McDonald's reached the $1 billion mark in total recycled purchases since the inception of the "McDonald's Recycles" program in 1990.
  13. The US Post Office won an environmental award for their self adhesive post stamps. Most self stick items, like envelope labels interfere with the recycling process. However, the self stick stamps are made from a different glue base which can be easily recyclable along with the envelope.
  14. All steel made in North America contains a minimum of 28%, and up to virtually 100% recycled content.
  15. A steel mill using recycled scrap metal reduces related air, water, and mining wastes by about 70%.
  16. It takes about 4 times as much energy to make steel from virgin ore as it does to make steel from scrap.
  17. White office paper is much more valuable in recycling markets than colored paper. Writing on it with colored ink doesn't have any impact on the paper grade. But absolutely no crayons!
  18. Recycling a 3 feet high stack of newspapers saves the equivalent of about 14% of the average household electric bill.
  19. Every time we recycle one ton of paper we save about 7,000 gallons of water.
  20. All soda bottles are made from Plastic #1, polyethylene terephtalate, commonly called PET. It's the only plastic that can retain carbonation.
  21. 1/3 of all the carpets in the United States contain PET plastics.
  22. Plastic #3, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) melts different than other plastics. In recycling machines it get hot quicker than most other plastics. Under very high heat it turns to hydrochloric acid and can actually melt parts of the ordinary recycling machines. Some machines are capable of recycling plastic #3, however, it's important that you don't mix this plastic with your other types.

Most of the information in this document came from the publication: The Recycler's Handbook, published by Earth Works Press.



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