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November 15th - America Recycles Day You Do Make a Difference

Release Date: 11/13/2008
Contact Information: Donna Heron 215-814-5113 or heron.donna@epa.gov

PHILADELPIA (November 13, 2008) – The average American discards about 4.6 pounds of trash every day.

This trash goes mostly to landfills where it is compacted and buried. But within your trash are many valuable resources that can be recycled and reused, such as glass, aluminum, paper, yard clippings and even food scraps. As the population grows and the amount of trash created continues to grow, so will pressure on our landfills, our resources and our environment.

If you’re looking for a way to join the “going green” revolution, recycling is an easy activity that produces significant results. Check with your municipality to find out how to get started. November 15 – America Recycles Day is a great time to begin.

Recycling is not a new phenomenon, according to the National Recycling Coalition, “. . . before the 1920s, 70 percent of U.S. cities ran programs to recycle certain materials. During World War II, industry recycled and reused about 25 percent of the waste stream.”

More recent statistics indicate that the nation's composting and recycling rate rose from 7.7 percent of the waste stream in 1960 to 17 percent in 1990. Currently the number hovers around 33 percent. The higher we go, the more energy we save.

If you think your contribution doesn’t matter, you are wrong. Last year the amount of energy saved from recycling aluminum and steel cans, plastic and glass containers, newsprint and corrugated packaging was equivalent to the amount of gasoline used by almost 11 million cars or the amount of electricity consumed by 17.8 million Americans in a year.

Closer to home think about this: Americans throw away about 28 billion bottles and jars every year. Just by recycling one glass container, enough energy is saved to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours. It all comes back to you! Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

For more information on Recycling go to: https://www.epa.gov/reg3wcmd/solidwasterecycling.htm

For more information on America Recycles Day go to: http://www.nrc-recycle.org/americarecycles.aspx