Learn More about Recycling in New Jersey and the United States

Everyone today has learned about recycling in school. As part of the waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle, the United States has been working to lower its footprint on the environment since the movement gained steam in the 1970s. Here are some impressive facts about recycling today.

 

Recycling Statistics About Aluminum Cans

  1. Aluminum Cans, one of the most commonly recycled item in the United States, can be recycled and back on shelves in as little as 2 months.
  2. Recycling an Aluminum can save enough technology to power a home television for nearly 3 hours.
  3. If a can is not recycled, it will take up to 500 years to break down.

 

Recycling Statistics About Paper

  1. Five-hundred thousand trees must be cut down for each week’s Sunday newspaper.
  2. Recycling one day of the New York Times can save 75,000 trees.
  3. The average person uses seven trees per year on paper, wood, and other paper products.
  4. The average person uses 680 pounds of paper per year.
  5. Rainforests are cut down at a rate of about 100 acres a minute.
  6. There are currently about 3 Trillion trees in the world, half as many as before the advent of agriculture.
  7. Using 2000 more pounds of recycled paper can save 17 trees and hundreds of gallons of oil.
  8. Recycled paper pollutes the air approximately 70% less than new paper.
  9. Discarded wood and paper could heat 50 million homes for 20 years.

 

Plastic Recycling Statistics

  1. The United States averages 2.5 million plastic bottles every thirty minutes.
  2. Only 5% of all plastics in the US are actually recycled.
  3. Recycling one ton of plastic saves one to two-thousand gallons of gasoline.
  4. Trashed plastic bottles in the US could make a roundtrip to the moon 20 times.
  5. The United States uses approximately 380 billion plastic bags, close to 40 million barrels of oil.
  6. A plastic grocery bag takes an average of 500 to 1,000 years to degrade.
  7. It is projected that 46,000 pieces of plastic are floating in each square mile of ocean.
  8. Plastic bags in the ocean are projected to kill 1 million sea creatures annually.

 

Class B Recycling Statistics

  1. Class b recycling materials are the most common form of recycling in New Jersey
  2. Recycling of tires has grown from 11% in 1990 to over 70% today
  3. 200,000 tons of crumb rubber were recovered from waste tires in 1996
  4. Up to 50% of new tires can be manufactured from recycled rubber
  5. In 1996, about 202 million scrap tires were recycled or reused. 152 million of these tires were used to manufacture tire-based fuel for manufacturing processes.
  6. Recycling of asphalt pavements and shingles conserved 20.5 million barrels of asphalt binder in 2010.
  7. Concrete is the most recycled material in the US
  8. Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a 100-watt bulb for four hours
  9. Cigarette filters take 12 years to biodegrade.
  10. 25 trillion Styrofoam coffee cups are thrown away in the United States.
  11. Styrofoam takes 5,000 years to biodegrade.
  12. Glass take 1 million years to complete degrade in a landfill.
  13. Each year, over 50 million tons of waste is created by electronics.
  14. A faucet that leaks one drop of water per second will waste 540 gallons of water each year.
  15. The most discarded products in the United States are diapers, pens, razor blades, tires and aluminum. All can be recycled.

 

Work with Jefferson Recycling to Make the World Better

At Jefferson Recycling, we are focused on making sure that class B recycling materials are put back to work. If you have need of a class B recycling facility in northern New Jersey, contact us today or call (973) 361-1589.