Did You Know...? A Few Recycling Statistics

The article referenced briefly for this post can be found here this time.

Did you know that an average person makes 4.5 pounds of trash a day? That adds up to 1.5 tons of waste a year.

When you make 1.5 tons of waste a year, how much can that add up to in your lifetime? Right now, it seems to be roughly 28.5 tons for just me. You can do the math to figure out my age from that, or I can just tell you: I'm only 19 right now. I haven't even been 19 for half a year, so I might not have reached that 28.5 ton mark yet...or maybe I have?

Here's a question: does that average of 4.5 pounds of trash a day include all the plastic diapers of the world?

Another fact from the greenwaste article: it's estimated by the EPA that about 75% of our waste can be recycled...but only around 30% of it actually gets recycled.

If we're not recycling what can be recycled, what good does that do us in the long run? Those of us who do recycle are trying to help save Mother Earth because she can't do it alone...but those of us who don't recycle are dragging her back.

A few small steps forward? The Recyclers. A giant leap backwards? Yeah, that's the rest of us.

Until recently, I didn't do much recycling. I started doing just a bit when I got to college and saw the aluminum can and plastic bottle bins everywhere. And then I started doing some research--you've seen some of it, if you've looked at older posts. I realized that The Recycling Movement starts with us. Not just me, or Jessica, or Kayli (the other founders of the blog), but with all of us. Everyone can make a difference.

Just think: 55 billion aluminum cans went into landfills, or in the ditch, or were burned in 2004. The sad part? That's 9 million more than in 2000. Four years, 9 million cans. What's that number up to now?

"This is enough cans to fill the Empire State Building twenty times."

"The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years."

"Although recycling is the most common method of plastic waste pollution prevention, less than one percent of all plastics products are recycled in the U.S."


I think that says enough.

This is The Recycling Movement. I've never been greener--in more ways than one. I'm new at this whole shebang. Blogging, recycling...to use the gamer terminology, I'm a nOOb. But at least I'm willing to take that step.

It starts with me.

It starts with you.

It starts with us.