Recycle Those Cans and Bottles
by Melissa Wakeley
September 19, 2009
Check out
these recycling facts!
1. Americans throw away enough aluminum every month to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.
2. When you toss out one aluminum can, you waste as much energy as it you'd fill the same can half full of gasoline and poured it on the ground.
3. About 630 steel cans are recycled every second.
4. If all of the glass bottles and jars that were recycled in 1994 were laid out, they would reach the moon and half way back to Earth.
5. Americans go through 25 billion plastic bottles a year.
6. If every American household recycled just one out of every ten bottles they used, we'd keep 200 million pounds of plastic out of landfills every year.
7. It takes one 15 year old tree to produce half a box of paper.
8. It takes 450 years for a plastic 6-pack cover to decay in a landfill.
9. Americans make up 5% of world's population, but generate 30% of the world's garbage.
10. An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now but recycled can be back on the grocery store's shelf in 60 days.
This year the Second Graders have taken on the challenge of recycling cans and bottles that are discarded in our school. Our first trip to the Lyons Recycling Center brought in 83 bottles and cans.
