I just started a project recently that deals with recycling and sadly my eyes have really been opened. I have always had a watchful eye on recycling and how beneficial it really is. As a designer I am privy to a little more in depth information of recycling and the benefits and pitfalls of the system but through this new project I’m starting to question my beliefs. I gathered a few facts from various web sites to share with you.. Hope this opens your eyes too!
-Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!
-Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!
-Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.
-Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam coffee cups every year.
-In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each but only recycled an average of 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills.
-Bottled water costs between $1 and $4 per gallon, and 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.
-According to the Beverage Marketing Corp, the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976. In 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons.
-It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture a year’s supply of bottled water. That’s enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.
-Eight out of 10 plastic water bottles become landfill waste.
-In 2007 we spent $16 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets.
-Plastic bottles can take up to 1000 years before they begin to decompose once buried.
-If everyone in NYC gave up water bottles for one week, they would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled. One month on the same plan would save 112 million bottles, and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.
-For every ton of paper recycled, we save 4,100 kilowatts of electricity for
three hours.
- Half of all polyester carpet made in the United States is made from
recycled plastic (PET) and
- Aluminum cans produced in the United States can contain at least 50%
recycled content.