Recycling Fun Facts

Paper pulp from a factory

Did You Know?

• The United States produces and uses a third of the world's paper. Forests in the southeastern U.S. now supply a quarter of the global total.¹
• The average U.S. citizen uses more than 300 kilograms of paper annually, and the average Japanese uses 250 kilograms. People in developing countries, in contrast, use only 18 kilograms of paper a year on average—in India, the figure is 4 kilos, while in 20 countries in Africa, it is less than 1 kilo. (The United Nations estimates that 30-40 kilos is the minimum needed to meet basic literacy and communication needs.)¹
• Producing one ton of paper requires 2-3 times its weight in trees. Newly cut trees account for 55 percent of the global paper supply, while 38 percent is from recycled wood-based paper, and the remaining 7 percent comes from non-tree sources.¹
• The pulp and paper industry is the world's fifth largest industrial consumer of energy and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.¹
• Making paper from recycled content rather than virgin fiber creates 74 percent less air pollution and 35 percent less water pollution. Yet the share of total paper fiber coming from recycled material has grown only modestly from 20 percent in 1921 to 38 percent today.¹
• The group Environmental Defense estimates that if the entire U.S. catalog industry switched its publications to just 10-percent recycled content paper, the savings in wood alone would be enough to stretch a 1.8-meter-high fence across the United States seven times.¹
• The United States has only 6% of the world population, but produces half of the world's garbage.¹
• Recycling one glass bottle saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.²
• 75,000 trees must be cut to provide paper for one edition of the Sunday New York Times.¹
• 17 trees are saved when you recycle one ton (2000 lbs) of paper.¹
• We throw away enough office and writing paper annually to build a wall twelve feet high stretching from Los Angeles to New York City.¹
• If we recycle the aluminum trash that Americans throw away we could rebuild the entire U.S. airline fleet EVERY three months.¹
• The United States generates approximately 208 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) a year. That's 4.3 pounds per person per day.²

How long does it take things to break down?

• Tin takes 100 years
• Aluminum takes 500 years
• Glass takes a million years!!

Facts About Recycling in California

• When you recycle in California, most of the time these materials are manufactured into another product. This saves valuable natural resources and energy, as well as prolongs the use of limited landfill space.³
• Californians are recycling 58% of all aluminum, glass, plastic, and bimetal beverage containers in the state.³
• In 2002, more than 10.6 billion containers were recycled in California.³
• In 2001, Californians recycled an average of 29 million beverage containers each day.³
• In 1997, only 31 percent of the 14 million tons of post-consumer paper generated annually was recovered for recycling, with the remainder (approximately 9.5 million tons) disposed--primarily in landfills.⁴
• In 1997, California shipped about 36 percent of its recovered post-consumer paper to foreign markets.⁴

1 Cited from WorldWatch Institute
2 Cited from Cornell's Waste Reduction Activities and Pennsylvania's Recycling Page
3 Cited from City of Keene, N.H. Recycling Page
4 Cited from California Department of Conservation Fact Sheet 2002
5 Cited from the California Integrated Waste Management Board paper page