Good question. So…why recycle? We live in a throw-away society these days. Everywhere we look, all around us, we are constantly told to “consume, consume, consume”. Yet, very little thought appears to be put into just how limited our resources really are. It may feel like the Earth is a massive, expansive place, but in reality we live on something about as large as a speck of dust compared to the surrounding universe. Our planet is a special place…lets treat it like one. Here’s some food for thought:
The average person generates 4.5 pounds of trash every day – about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year. Although the EPA estimates that 75% of solid waste is recyclable, only about 30 percent is actually recycled.
Recycling is the most common method of plastic waste pollution prevention, yet less than 1% of all plastic products are recycled in the U.S. Americans throw away 25,000,000 (yep…that’s 25 MILLION) plastic beverage bottles every hour!
By some accounts, the energy saved by recycling one aluminum can equals the amount of energy it takes to run a TV set for four hours. This is the energy equivalent of 0.5 gallon (1.9 liters) of gasoline.
It takes nearly 9,000 pounds (4,086 kilograms) of bauxite (aluminum ore) and 1,020 pounds (463 kilograms) of petroleum coke (fuel) to manufacture one ton of aluminum. Using recycled aluminum to produce aluminum reduces raw material requirements by 95 percent and energy requirements by 90 percent.
During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 more 12-ounce aluminum cans are made from scratch. Let’s recycle them.
Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save:
* 3.5 cubic yards of landfill
* 17 thirty foot (pulp) trees
* 7,000 gallons of water
* 380 gallons of oil
* 4100 kwh of energy
And, at the same time eliminate 60 pounds of air pollutants
Garden City Recycling promotes environmental stewardship by providing neighborhoods throughout Missoula with reliable curbside pick-up of recyclable materials.