You may know the basics of recycling – it protects our environment, conserves natural resources, saves energy and helps us reduce the amount of waste going into landfills. But here are five facts about recycling you may not know.
Recycling: What You Need to Know
1. Aluminum Recycling is Important
Aluminum is one of the most recyclable and valuable materials. It retains its properties indefinitely, and 75 percent of all aluminum produced is still in use today. Aluminum is also one of the only recyclable materials that more than pays off the cost of its own recycling. This is due to the continuous increase in the demand for aluminum, as well as recycling this material saves more than 90 percent of the energy required to make a completely new metal.
2. It Takes Additional Resources to Produce Paper
You may not know it, but it takes 98 tons of resources to produce one ton of paper. Among those resources includes a significant water footprint. It takes 100 gallons of water to produce 40 sheets of paper. That’s 380 liters of water! Additionally, when you recycle one ton of paper, it can save 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 380 gallons of oil and 4,000 kilowatts of energy, which is enough to power the average American home for six months!
3. You Waste the Most Water in the Bathroom
It may not be as unexpected that water gets wasted the most in the bathroom, but do you know by how much? One quick shower can use about 10 gallons of water, but if you take any longer you can end up using 25 gallons of water. That’s not including a bath, which can use up to 70 gallons of water! In addition, a leak in your bathroom can waste up to 3,000 gallons of water annually if you’re not careful.
4. You Can Put Your Old Things to Good Use
Have old VHS tapes lying around and don’t know what to do with them? Don’t worry, you can recycle them! Old videotapes can actually be taken apart and shredded to make useful items, such as product packaging. Don’t throw away your old crayons either. Instead of putting them in the trash, save your crayons and donate them to an organization that can melt them down and turn them into brand new ones. If you have old running shoes, you can put them to good use too. Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe campaign takes in old running shoes for recycling and makes them into a material used to create playground surfaces as well as a select few of Nike’s products.
5. Brick and Concrete are Recyclable
Broken or used brick and concrete is just as valuable to recycle. Generally, brick and concrete are thrown into landfills, taking up too much space for a long period of time. If you’re doing a house renovation or your company is under construction, recycle your unused brick, concrete, or other construction materials to prevent the unnecessary build up of waste. Your brick and concrete can actually be recycled into an abundance of materials that can be reused by a number of construction and recycling companies for quality building materials.
Recycle Your Construction Waste at Jefferson Recycling
Here at Jefferson Recycling, our team specializes in customized recycling options for your home renovation project or construction operation. We accept a wide variety of materials at our New Jersey recycling center.
At our facility, we use onsite crushing as an excellent alternative to upcycle your demolition materials. Common building materials that can be crushed onsite include brick, concrete, asphalt and block. Once they are processed at our facility, we offer them back to the construction and landscape industries as reusable, recycled products. Contact us today to see if our onsite crushing is right for you next home or construction project and for more information on our quality services!