Environmental Factoids
Aluminum
- Aluminum can be recycled using less than 5 percent of the energy used to make the original product.
- Recycling one aluminum beverage can saves enough energy to run a 100 watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.
Plastic
- Producing new plastic from recycled material uses only two-thirds of the energy required to manufacture it from raw materials.
- Plastics require 100 to 400 years to break down at the landfill.
- Five 2-liter recycled PET bottles produce enough fiberfill to make a ski jacket.
Glass
- Producing glass from virgin materials requires 30 percent more energy than producing it from crushed, used glass.
- The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will operate a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
- It takes approximately 1 million years for a glass bottle to break down at the landfill.
Steel
- Tin cans contain 99 percent steel.
- Recycling steel and tin cans saves between 60 and 74 percent of the energy used to produce them from raw materials.
- According to the Steel Recycling Institute, steel recycling in the United States saves the energy equivalent to electrical power for about one-fifth of American households for one year.
- One ton of recycled steel saves the energy equivalent of 3.6 barrels of oil and 1.49 tons of iron ore over the production of new steel.
Paper
- Producing recycled paper requires about 60 percent of the energy used to make paper from virgin wood pulp.
- Manufacturing one ton of office and computer paper with recycled paper stock can save between 3,000 and 4,000 kilowatt hours over the same ton of paper made with virgin wood products.
- Preventing 1 ton of paper waste saves between 15 and 17 mature trees.
Courtesy of US EPA's WasteWise Program. Check out the Waste Reduction Resource Directory
Lynn L. says:
Many Americans know about the importance of saving energy, and many know about the importance of saving water. But few know about the direct connection between saving both. We turn on the bathroom lights and the shower without realizing how closely related water and electricity are to each other. The truth is vast amounts of energy are used to pump, treat, deliver, and heat our nation’s water.
Did You Know?
Saving water saves energy.If 1 percent of American homes replaced older toilets with
WaterSense labeled ones, the United States would save enough electricity to power more than 40,000 homes for a month.
Approximately 4 percent of the nation’s electricity consumption is used moving or treating water and wastewater. It also takes water to create energy. Vast amounts of water are used to cool the power plants that generate electricity. In fact, it takes 3,000 to 6,000 gallons of water to power a 60-watt incandescent bulb for 12 hours per day over the course of a year!
(from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's WaterSense Program brochure)
Cris Bisch says:
Wowsers, Lynn!! Water usage is a critical issue of concern for me, too. Thanks for adding EPA stats regarding water usage/waste ratios in regards to providing and saving energy, to this list of factoids from EPA. To bring it home, according to the American Water Works Association, the average single-family household in the USA uses 69.3 gallons per day, indoor usage only; and an average overall use of 350 gallons per day. The AWWA states that "If all U.S. households installed water-saving features, water use would decrease by 30 percent, saving an estimated 5.4 billion gallons per day. This would result in dollar-volume savings of $11.3 million per day or more than $4 billion per year."
Adam W. says:
These are some great factoids all! Thanks for sharing.
Elli A. says:
Energy use is something people rarely think of when it comes to recycling. We normally think of resources use and landfills. Very interesting factoids.