- Recycling creates 1.1 million U.S. jobs, $236 billion in gross annual sales and $37 billion in annual payrolls.
- The more people recycle the cheaper it gets.
- Every bit of recycling makes a difference. For example, one year of recycling on just one college campus, Stanford University, saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 iron ore, coal, and limestone.
- The energy we save when we recycle on glass bottle is enough to light a light bulb for hours.
- Recycling creates four jobs for every one job created in the waste management and disposal industries.
- Recycling helps families save money, especially in communities with pay-as-you-throw programs.
- Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours—or the equivalent of half a gallon of gasoline.
- While recycling has grown in general, recycling of specific materials has grown even more drastically: 52 percent of all paper, 31 percent of all plastic soft drink bottles, 45 percent of all aluminum beer and soft drink cans, 63 percent of all steel packaging, and 67 percent of all major appliances are now recycled.
- Twenty years ago, only one curbside recycling program existed in the United States, which collected several materials at the curb. By 2006, about 8,660 curbside programs had sprouted up across the nation. As of 2005, about 500 materials recovery facilities had been established to process the collected materials.
- The recovery rate of municipal solid waste (a fancy way of saying city garbage) through recycling and composting programs was up to 32% as of 2005 (the US General Accounting Office only reports every two years). That is a significant increase from 1980, when less than 10% was recycled.
- Since 1980, the generation of municipal solid waste has grown by 60%.
- The United States has finally reached a landmark in its paper recycling efforts in 2006 with 53.4% of the paper consumed being recovered for recycling.
- Statistically the United States recycles just about 28% of its waste today, which is doubled from what it was a decade ago. Unfortunately the U.S. is #1 in trash producing countries, producing about 1,609 pounds of trash per person per year and Canadians produce more garbage per person than almost any other country in the world.
- The overall Statewide redemption rate for all beverage containers in 2005 was about 66 percent, which was decrease of 3.2 percent from the previous year.
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