Americans throw away enough paper to make a solid wall from New York to California!!!

The US discards so much aluminum that it could rebuild the US commercial air fleet four times!!!

This page is here to tell you all about recycling.

Recycling is important because if you don’t recycle you will end up living on a pile of trash. Also, it is important for the US to recycle because we are the biggest trash producing country in the world. We make up less than 5% of the population and create more than 40% the trash – we create an average of 1,609 pounds of trash per person per year!

 

What to recycle....

Depending on where you live you can recycle different items. Most generally everyone can recycle thin neck glass bottles, cardboard, plastic bottles, batteries (placed in a plastic bag)  and paper. Paper is a huge one just look at these facts…

**   The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year. Most is packaging and junk mail. 

 

**   Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!

**  The 17 trees saved (above) can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide.

 

In Santa Cruz County you can recycle ALL paper products (cardboard, packaging, mail, newspapers), ALL glass, Plastics labeled on the bottom with 1 through 7, ALL metal cans (aluminum & tin), batteries and you can put your raw kitchen waste in the organic (green) cans!

 

Were to put your recycling…

If you are lucky to live in Santa Cruz County your recycling can go in your BLUE recycling container. In other counties you need to request a recycling container at an additional cost. You can also take your Redemption Value recycling to recycling sheds and turn them in for money. If you go to the landfill or dump your recycling goes to a recycling shed at the dump.

 

REMEMBER, if you put recycling in the trash it goes to the trash part of the dump, which most dumps are already closing from too much trash.

              

We hope this helps you to recycle more and reduce our waste!

 

Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct!!!

One aluminum can could power a TV for three hours!!!