templetegreen

To give you an idea of how much trash we generate here in the United States, imagine a hole the size of a football field, including the end zones. If we bury all of the trash we produce in just one year, that hole would be 100 miles deep!

Every year we fill enough garbage trucks to form a line that would stretch from the earth, halfway to the moon.

Each day the United States throws away enough trash to fill 63,000 garbage trucks.

Almost 1/3 of the waste generated in America is packaging.

In 1986, the United States generated almost 160 million tons of paper, glass, metals, plastics, rubber, food and yard waste. This was an increase of 80% over the figures in 1960.

In 1995 27% of the United States’ food supply spoiled or went unused (48,000,000 tons).

Man-made rubbish in orbit includes 8,500 objects and 100,000 pieces of space litter.

74,200 fans at Super Bowl XXX generated 75 tons of trash in Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix, while 72,000 fans at Super Bowl XXXI generated 68 tons at the Superdome in New Orleans. At Super Bowl XXXII in Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, 70 tons of trash was generated by 68,000 fans.

We throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.

Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.

We throw away enough glass bottles to have filled the 1350 foot World Trade Towers every two weeks. (If they were still standing.)

Switzerland leads the world in the percentage of glass recycled with 89%. The U.S. is 5th at 32%.

In America, 1,500 aluminum cans are recycled every second.

Recycling an aluminum soda can saves 96% of the energy used to make a can from ore, and produces 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution.

It takes the energy equivalent to half a soda can of gasoline to produce one soda can from bauxite ore.

We throw away enough aluminum cans to rebuild our commercial air fleet every three months, and enough iron and steel to supply all our nation’s auto makers every day.

Throwing away one aluminum can wastes as much energy as if that can were 1/2 full of gasoline.

In 1986 48.7% of all aluminum cans were being recycled. In 1990 that percentage increased to 63.6% and, in 1996, 63.5% were being recycled.

If you stacked all the refrigerators Americans buy in a single week, you’d have a tower more than 80 miles high.

In 1992 55% of all U.S. appliances were being recycled. In 1994 that increased to 70.2%, and in 1996 76.4% were being recycled.

In 1996 steel cans, including food, paint and aerosol cans, were recycled at a rate of 58.2% and automobiles were recycled at a rate of 97.9%. The overall steel recycling rate was about 65%.

Paper takes up 40% of our landfills.

The amount of paper recycled annually by the average American in 1995 was 301.8 lbs., increasing in 1996 to 329 lbs.

In the United States an additional 5 million tons of waste is generated during the holidays. 4 million tons of this is wrapping paper and shopping bags.