Recycling Facts

Facts   Energy Savings   Link to Climate Change   Where Do Materials Go?   What is Made from Materials?

It seems obvious that recycling reduces the need for new raw materials, but there are many other facts about recycling, and NOT recycling, that people may not know.

• During the past 35 years, the amount of waste each person creates has almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.4 pounds per day.
• Americans recycled 28.5 percent of their waste, or 110.4 million tons. By comparison, 64 percent — 248.6 million tons — of waste still is thrown away in landfills, with the remainder, 7.4 percent or 28.9 million tons, burned, mostly in waste-to-energy plants.
• Americans throw away enough office paper each year to build a 12-foot high wall of paper from New York to Seattle.

In this section, you can learn about energy and climate change benefits from recycling. Also find out where your items go after the truck collects them and what they become.

This site is hosted and maintained by the
	Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
Copyright © 2010 All Rights Reserved