Did
You Know...
Each ton of recycled
paper can save 17
trees, 380 gallons
of oil, three
cubic yards
of landfill space, 4,000
kilowatts
of energy and 7,000
gallons
of water!
Americans use more
than 67
million tons
of paper per year, or about 580
pounds
per person.
Paper products
make up the largest part (approximately 40
percent)
of our trash.
Making recycled
paper instead of new paper uses 64
percent
less energy and uses 58
percent
less water.
Every day American
businesses generate enough paper to circle the earth 20
times
!
Every day Americans
recover more than 2
million pounds
of paper! That's about 40
percent
of the paper we use.
Paper products
use up at least 35
percent
of the world's annual commercial wood harvest.
The highest
point
in Ohio is said to be "Mount Rumpke," which is a "mountain"
made up of trash -- at a sanitary landfill! Rumpke
is one of the nation's largest waste and recycling companies.
One tree can filter
up to 60
pounds
of pollutants from the air each year.
Each year, Americans
throw away 25
trillion
Styrofoam cups.
In Britain, over
9 million "nappies" or disposable
diapers, are used every day.
More than 1/3
of all fiber
used to make paper comes from recycled paper.
Every Sunday, Americans
waste 90 percent of recyclable newspapers. This wastes 500,000
trees!
A new landfill
generally costs
more
than an old one that has filled up. This is because it typically
costs more to comply with new environmental regulations, to buy
the land, to construct the landfill and to transport waste because
new landfills generally are farther away than older ones.
Every year more
than 900
million trees
are cut down to provide raw materials for American paper and pulp
mills.
Only 1
percent of the world's water supply is usable;
97 percent is in the ocean and 2 percent is frozen.
Why
Recycle - Five Good Reasons
How
Recycled Paper Is Made...
Waste
paper is collected, sorted, baled and transported to a paper recycling
plant.
You can help by sorting paper and keeping it dry and out of the sun
(water and sunlight make it harder to remove ink).
At the paper factory,
used paper is mixed with water in a huge blender called a "hydrapulper,"
which mixes the paper with water, pulling inks away from the paper
fibers and separating the fibers themselves. De-inking chemicals are
sometimes also added.
The pulp mixture passes
through several different-sized screens, which separate the paper
fibers from paper clips, staples and other contaminants.
In most cases, the
clean pulp is then mixed with some new wood pulp to make the recycled
paper stronger. Recycled paper fibers get shorter the more often they
are recycled. Most fibers can be recycled
The clean pulp is
pressed into sheets, dried, finished and placed onto rolls.
Recycling
Around the World
People are making
efforts all over the world to recycle and take better care of our
planet.
|
This recycling bin sits outside a McDonald's at a train
station in Rome, Italy. Visitors are asked to sort paper, waste
and glass or aluminum cans.
|
In Bristol, England,
for example, they have a "Waste
Not" Festival,
where you could guess
how many aluminum cans had been crushed into a brick, hear "Cycler
the Robot" sing the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle Rap and create art from items
in a "Scrapstore."
A neighborhood recycling
group there passed out leaflets and stickers with a catchy earth-friendly
slogan: "Before You Bin It, Think What's In It!" Try to come
up with your own catchy phrases to help you remember to recycle.
Another group has
installed picnic tables and seats made from recycled plastics at a
neighborhood park. They are also building a mosaic walkway out of
broken crockery and reclaimed tiles.
If you stop in at
Ben & Jerry's for an ice
cream cone, you'll find a brochure called "Ben & Jerry's
Thoughts On Dioxin." It talks about how the ice cream containers
at Ben & Jerry's are made with unbleached paper. The paper bleaching
process can produce dioxin, a dangerous toxic chemical. Ben &
Jerry's has developed its new carton from unbleached brown (kraft)
paperboard, which can be made from recycled paper fibers.
Battery-maker Duracell
built its new international headquarters using materials from its
own waste. More than half of the building materials contained waste
material from the company's own manufacturing process. This included
flooring made from crushed glass and broken light bulbs, ceiling tiles
made from recycled newspapers and roofing from recycled aluminum.
Look on the bottom
of your cereal box to see if it's made from recycled paper. Kellogg's
Froot Loops, for instance, come in a box made from 100 percent
recycled paperboard. You can also get cereal, often for less money,
in bags that have no box. Quaker
Oats, for example, sells its bagged
cereals for 35-40 percent below the price of boxed cereals.
And
at Disney's Animal
Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, there are brightly colored recycling
bins throughout the park (photo at right). Imagine what a difference
that is making among the waste typically generated by their millions
of guests.
Asked about recycling
efforts at the Disney parks, Joan Manangu, Executive Offices at Walt
Disney World Resort, writes:
"Regrettably,
we are unable to provide you with a date as to when our Recycling
Program began. However, our Company created a department called
Environmental Initiatives. This department was created in 1994 to
identify environmental initiatives around the Walt Disney World
Resort.
"The first
recyclable bins were placed in the Magic Kingdom Park in 1996. The
approximate figures for the monthly total of items recycled in the
month of March 1999 at Disney's Animal Kingdom Park are listed below.
- 28.9% of Class
Waste (trash, paper, & food waste) was recycled.
- 42.8% of Class
III (manure, yard waste, & construction waste) was recycled."
If you pay attention,
you'll begin to notice recycling efforts all around you!
Read
up on these recycling facts, then play our 
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