Yesterday was America Recycles Day – the latest manifestation of what is not a new idea – in fact at its very core it is an extremely old idea: take something old and reuse it to make it something new again. Industrial scale recycling like we have today didn’t begin until the 1970’s. In 1980 there was only one curbside recycling program in the United States. Today, there are over 10,000. And the statistics that followed the recycling craze statistics are really shocking. (photo: americarecyclesday.org)
- There are the good:
Recycling saves energy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling a single aluminum can saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours. Recycling a stack of newspapers three feet high saves one tree.
Making glass from recycled materials cuts related water pollution by 50%
- And there are the bad:
Every three months we throw away enough aluminum foil to rebuild the entire US commercial air fleet.
Americans throw enough office paper away each year to build a 12 foot high wall of paper from NY to Seattle.
Only about 6.8% of the total plastic used in the US actually can be recycled.
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