Increase Text SizeDecrease Text SizeText Size Print this page

IN THIS SECTION

KNOW YOUR TRASH FACTS

About 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, yet our recycling rate is just 33%. (Environmental Protection Agency)

More than ½ million trees are saved each year by recycling paper in Boulder County. (Eco-Cycle)

By recycling more than 57,000 tons of steel cans, we reduce greenhouse gasses equivalent to taking more than 21,000 cars off the road each year. (WM)

Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70%, water use by 50%, and air pollution by 20%. (Environmental Defense Fund)

If we recycled all of the newspapers printed in the U.S. on a typical Sunday, we would save 550,000 trees—or about 26 million trees per year. (California Department of Conservation)

The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year—or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years. (Steel Recycling Institute)

The total volume of solid waste produced in the U.S. each year is equal to the weight of more than 5,600 Nimitz Class air craft carriers, 247,000 space shuttles, or 2.3 million Boeing 747 jumbo jets. (Beck)

An average kitchen-size bag of trash contains enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for more than 24 hours. (Covanta)

The solid waste industry currently produces more than half of America's renewable energy, more than combined energy outputs of the solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and wind power industries. (U.S. DOE, Energy Information Administration)

Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees, 2 barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for 6 months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space, and 60 pounds of air pollution. (Trash to Cash)

Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for 3 hours. (Eco-Cycle)

Glass can be recycled an indefinite number of times and never wears out. (National Recycling Coalition)

Making glass from recycled material cuts related water pollution by 50%. (National Recycling Coalition)

If we put all of the solid waste collected in the U.S. in a line of average garbage trucks, that line of trucks could cross the country, extending from New York City to Los Angeles, more than 100 times. (Beck)

Five PET bottles (plastic soda bottles) yield enough fiber for one extra large T-shirt, one square food of carpet or enough fiber fill to fill one ski jacket. (National Recycling Coalition)

The average person has the opportunity to recycle more than 25,000 cans in a lifetime. (National Recycling Coalition)

Americans throw away enough office paper each year to build a 12-foot-high wall of paper from New York to Seattle. (National Recycling Coalition)

The average American discards seven and a half pounds of garbage every day. (National Recycling Coalition)

Once an aluminum can is recycled, it's back on the grocery shelf as another aluminum can in 60 days. (www.aluminum.org)

Americans throw away enough aluminum every three months to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet. (www.aluminum.org)

Tossing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring out half of that can's volume of gasoline. (www.aluminum.org)

Enough aluminum cans were recycled last year to fill a hollow Empire State Building 24 times. (www.aluminum.org)

The 62.6 billion cans recycled last year alone would make 171 circles around the earth at its equator. (www.aluminum.org)

Some 119,482 cans are recycled every minute nationwide. (www.aluminum.org)

Over the past 10 years, the number of aluminum cans recycled has doubled. (www.aluminum.org)

More than one million tons of aluminum containers and packaging are thrown away each year. (www.aluminum.org)

Recycling 1 ton of aluminum saves the equivalent in energy of 2,350 gallons of gasoline. This is equivalent to the amount of electricity used by the average home over a period of 10 years. (www.aluminum.org)

By using recycled aluminum instead of virgin ore, aluminum manufactures save enough energy needed to supply electricity to a city the size of Pittsburgh for about six years. (www.aluminum.org)

In 2006, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 357 pounds for each man, woman, and child in the United States. (http://earth911.org)

Every ton of paper recycled saves more than 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space. (http://earth911.org)

By 2012, the paper industry’s goal is to recover 55 percent of all the paper Americans consume for recycling, which is approximately 55 million tons of paper. (http://earth911.org)

More than 37 percent of the fiber used to make new paper products in the United States comes from recycled sources. (http://earth911.org)

86 percent (approximately 254 million) of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs. (http://earth911.org)

Every month, we throw out enough recyclable glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. (www.recycling-revolution.com)

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials. (www.recycling-revolution.com)

Every year, Americans throw away enough office and writing paper to build a wall 12 feet high, stretching from Los Angeles to New York City. (www.fairfaxcounty.gov)

Recycling one ton of paper saves one acre of trees. (www.fairfaxcounty.gov)

If all the glass bottles and jars collected through recycling in the U.S. in one year were laid end-to-end, they would reach the Moon and half way back to the Earth. (www.fairfaxcounty.gov)

The volume of glass recycled by Americans in one year would fill New Jersey's Giants Stadium more than three times. (www.fairfaxcounty.gov)

Glass can be recycled an infinite number of times. (www.fairfaxcounty.gov)

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100-watt bulb for four hours. (www.fairfaxcounty.gov)

See more trash facts

STAY CONNECTED

Stay informed. Sign up here for electronic mailings of regular waste management industry news.

Contact Us

Privacy Policy

The Environmental Industry Associations (EIA), with its subassociations the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA) and the Waste Equipment Technology Association (WASTEC), is strongly committed to protecting your privacy online and has taken steps to protect the information you share with us. To help us protect your privacy, you should maintain the secrecy of the logon ID and password you may have set up in connection with your participation in any EIA, NSWMA or WASTEC website.

EIA currently collects three types of information from its Web sites, which include www.environmentalistseveryday.org, www.envasns.org, www.wastec.org, www.nswma.org, www.eiawomenscouncil.org, and www.eiawc.org: (1) your IP (Internet Protocol) address; (2) information voluntarily submitted on publication order forms, meeting registration forms or emails sent to the website administrator, or for access to the Members Only section of our Web site; and, (3) cookies if the user so chooses.

Your IP address often does not identify an individual, but rather is only a temporary name by which an individual obtains access to an EIA Web site. EIA uses your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our Web site quality. We do not use IP addresses to personally identify users. We use a log file of IP addresses to determine which areas of our site visitors like based on the volume of traffic and to better prepare future site content based on the interests of users. We do not track the usage patterns of individual users, but rather how well each page on our site performs overall.

Information voluntarily disclosed to EIA either online or in writing through publication order forms, meeting registration forms, survey response forms, service enrollment forms and email is added to the relevant EIA database to enable processing of the order or registration, or for appropriate response. This information is usually the name, address and item purchased, meeting attended or topic of interest. EIA may distribute further relevant information to individuals identified in this way. On occasion, we also contract with third parties for co-marketing or other activities related to the EIA’s goals and objectives, and allow them to use selected member information under strict confidentiality agreements. EIA will use its best efforts to prevent the government from obtaining member or customer information unless required by law. We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary: (a) to comply with the law or in response to a subpoena, court order, government request, or other legal process; (b) to protect the interests, rights, safety, or property of EIA or others; (c) to enforce any terms of service on this Web site; (d) to provide you with the services or products requested by you and to perform other activities related to such services and products, including billing and collection; or (e) to operate EIA's systems properly.

Information provided to EIA in non-electronic form may also be used in this way. Individuals who would like to "opt out" of receiving additional communications from EIA should contact EIA to have their names removed from our lists. Corrections or other changes may also by made by emailing membership@envasns.org or by calling (202) 244-4700.

Use of Cookies

Cookies are bits of information that are stored on your computer when you visit a Web site. Cookies can be used to store your personalization information such as a username and password. At any time you may choose to use, or not to use, this type of cookies technology to perform personalization on our site. If you choose not to, you must always login to your profile manually each time you visit the site.

Further information on the EIA’s online privacy policy may be obtained from the Director of Member Services, who is responsible for carrying out the policy. Email membership@envasns.org or call (202) 244-4700.

EIA reserves the right to change this statement at any time by posting revisions on the EIA Web site. This privacy policy is not intended to, and does not create any contractual or other legal rights in or on behalf of any party. This privacy policy applies only to the EIA, NSWMA and WASTEC websites and does not apply to other EIA products and services

Frequently Asked Questions About Cookies

Can cookies be used to get a "snapshot" of my hard drive? Cookies cannot be used to get data or view data off your hard drive. A server can only get data from the cookie it wrote to the cookie file. The server must be on the same domain from which the cookie was set.

Can someone from one site access the cookie information written by another site? A site can only access a cookie that has been set from its own domain. It cannot access any other cookies from your computer.

Is there a way to see the cookies that a web site has set? Cookies are stored in memory until you exit your browser, so it's not possible to see the current cookies you've accepted until you quit. If you type JavaScript:alert(document.cookie); into the address bar when you are logged onto a site, it is possible to see the cookies which have been set from that domain.

Privacy with Respect to Minors

EIA does not knowingly collect or use information from children under the age of 13 without the consent of a parent or guardian.

Other Web Sites and Links

EIA's websites contain links to other web sites. If you choose to use any of these links, you will be leaving EIA’s web site and going to a new web site. Protection of your privacy at these linked sites will be governed by the privacy policy at that site. You should take the time to read the privacy policies at these sites. Unless otherwise explicitly stated, we are not responsible for the privacy practices such sites or the use of any information that you provide.

Security

EIA endeavors to take appropriate measures to assure the reliability of member records and to protect them from loss, misuse or alteration. A firewall protects member records from access by Internet users.

If you send EIA credit card information, EIA will encrypt this information between your computer and our server. Other information that you send to this site, including e-mail messages, will not be encrypted unless we advise you otherwise.

Although our site has industry standard security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information that is under our control, EIA cannot guarantee complete security.

International User

Irrespective of your domicile or place of doing business, by using this web site, you agree that EIA may collect, use and transfer your information as described in this Privacy Policy Statement.

Changes to Policy

This policy may change over time. Your continued use of the site after these changes are posted constitutes your agreement to the changes with regard to information collected.