Recycling Facts

1. The average person generates over 4 pounds of trash every day and about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year.
2. In 2009, Americans produced enough trash to circle the Earth 24 times.
3. Over 75% of waste is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it.
4. We generate 21.5 million tons of food waste each year. If we composted that food, it would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road.
5. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to listen to a full album on your iPod. Recycling 100 cans could light your bedroom for 2 whole weeks.
6. Recycling aluminum cans saves 95% of the energy used to make alum cans from new material.
7. Americans throw away 25,000,000 plastic bottles every hour.
8. Over 87% of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs.
9. In 2009, Americans threw away almost 9 million tons of glass. That could fill enough tractor trailers to stretch from NYC to LA (and back!).
10. In 2010, paper recycling had increased over 89% since 1990.
11. If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we could save about 25 million trees each year.

For more information and to learn some reducing tips please go to Cuyahoga County's Solid Waste Management District page.