Recycling
Keep Ohio Beautiful Recycling Events
America Recycles Day
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One day to inform, educate and motivate.
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One day to get our neighbors, friends and community excited about what can be accomplished when we all work together.
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One day to make recycling bigger and better 365 days a year.
America Recycles Day, a Keep America Beautiful initiative, is the only nationally recognized day and community-driven awareness event dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States.
On (and around) November 15 each year, thousands of organizations hold events to educate people about recycling resources in their community. Through recycling collection drives, demonstrations, competitions, tours, displays and other awareness-raising events, citizens take this day to encourage each other to increase their recycling at home, at school, in the office and in the community at-large.
As the national steward of America Recycles Day, Keep America Beautiful provides this vast network of volunteer organizers in every state with resources and promotional materials to support their local America Recycles Day events.
americarecyclesday.org
Cans for Cash™
The Cans for Cash™ City Recycling Challenge is a national contest that rewards U.S. cities for recycling aluminum beverage cans. The Challenge is sponsored by a partnership of The United States Conference of Mayors, Novelis and Keep America Beautiful, Inc. Keep America Beautiful awards its partner organizations prizes for the “Most Innovative Ideas for Cities.” The states that recycle the most cans also receive awards.
cans4cash.com
Great American Cleanup
The Great American Cleanup, a program of KAB, takes place annually from March 1 through May 31, involving an estimated 3.9 million volunteers and participants. The hardworking volunteers donated more than 5.7 million hours in 2010 to clean, beautify and improve more than 33,700 communities during more than 30,000 events in all 50 states and beyond. Activities included beautifying parks and recreation areas, cleaning seashores and waterways, handling recycling collections, picking up litter, planting trees and flowers, and conducting educational programs and litter-free events.
The National Sponsors and Partners provide substantial support to the Great American Cleanup program in a variety of ways, from funding and in-kind donations to employee volunteer participation. America's leading companies and brands support the campaign.
Great American Cleanup
Recycle-Bowl
Recycle-Bowl (a program of KAB) is a free competition and benchmarking tool for K-12 school recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities. School recycling programs across the nation compete in a race to collect the most recyclables.
Whether a school has an extensive recycling program or one classroom is just launching basic recycling collections, Recycle-Bowl is a way for teachers, student green teams and facility managers to engage their school community in a fun and friendly way.
The competition is open to all elementary, middle and high schools and individual classrooms. Public, private and charter schools are eligible. Recycle-Bowl participants will track and report how much material they collect during the four-week competition timeframe in the fall semester. School-wide competitions may compete for national prizes.
One school in each state, that collects the most recyclable material per capita, will win $1000. A national champion will then be chosen from the top 50 statewide winners to receive a grand prize of $2500. Schools that host a community recycling drop-off program will compete in a separate category for first, second- and third- place cash prizes.
Recycle-bowl.org
RecycleMania
RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over a 8- week period each spring, schools report recycling and trash data which are then ranked according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate. With each week’s reports and rankings, participating schools watch how their results fluctuate against other schools and use this to rally their campus communities to reduce and recycle more.
While the stated goal for RecycleMania is to have a fair and friendly recycling competition, the program’s underlying value is to help campuses increase recycling and waste reduction activity by raising awareness among students and staff and by providing the catalyst for colleges and universities to build and expand their programs on campus. RecycleMania participation in many cases puts a recycling program on the front page of the campus paper, helping to build administrative recognition and support. It also provides a promotional opportunity to showcase new collection or waste reduction activities. By focusing on performance metrics, the program encourages campus efforts to benchmark improvement over time.
RecycleMania began in 2001 when the recycling coordinators at Ohio University and Miami University, looking for a way to motivate their campuses, challenged each other to see which one could collect the most recycling. Miami went on to beat Ohio that first year and RecycleMania was born! RecycleMania has been gaining momentum ever since, involving 630 campuses in 2011.
RecycleMania is a trademarked program of the RecycleMania Steering Committee, with management support provided by Keep America Beautiful.
recyclemania.org
RECYCLING FACTS & STATS
Recycling in General
Overall, Americans recovered 34% of waste generated in 2009. That means we threw away 161 million tons of material, which amounts to about three pounds of garbage per person per day.
There were about 9,000 curbside recycling programs in the United States in 2009.
In 2009, Americans recycled 82 million tons of materials. The resulting CO2 emission reduction is equivalent to taking 33 million passenger vehicles off the road.
The recyclable materials in the U.S. waste stream would generate over $7 billion if they were recycled. That’s equivalent to Donald Trump’s net worth.
The recycling industry employed over 1.1 million workers and generated over $236 billion in annual revenue in 2001. Increasing recycling rates and new collection programs show that the industry is growing.
Aluminum Recycling
In 2009, 3.4 million tons of aluminum were generated in the U.S. and .69 million tons were recovered.
In the United States, over 100,000 aluminum cans are recycled each minute. That amounts to 53 billion cans recycled in 2010. However, over $1.1 billion in aluminum cans were wasted in 2010.
The aluminum cans recycled in 2010, stacked one on top of the other, would be 1,454 times taller than the Empire State Building.
If you laid all the aluminum cans recycled in 2010 end to end, they could circle the earth 169 times!
The U.S. recycling rate for aluminum beverage cans reached 58.1% in 2010- a rate that is more than double that of any other beverage container.
Recycled Content
Aluminum cans have 68% recycled content.
Used aluminum cans are recycled and back on the shelf as new cans in as few as 60 days.
Energy
Twenty recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.
Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run your television for three hours.
The amount of energy saved just from recycling cans in 2010 is equal to the energy equivalent of 17 million barrels of crude oil, or nearly two days of all U.S. oil imports.
Resources
The pollutants created in producing one ton of aluminum include 3,290 pounds of red mud, 2,900 pounds of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), 81 pounds of air pollutants and 789 pounds of solid wastes.
Tossing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring out half of that can’s volume of gasoline.
Electronics Recycling
In 2009, 25% of all electronics at the end of their useful “lives” were collected for recycling.
Approximately 38% (by weight) of all computers ready for “end-of-life management” in 2009 were collected for recycling.
Only 17% (by weight) of all televisions at their “end-of-life” were recovered for recycling in 2009.
Only 8% (by weight) of all mobile phones no longer in use in 2009 were collected for recycling.
The average consumer replaces their mobile phone every 20.5 months.
Glass Recycling
In 2009, 12 million tons of glass was generated in the United States, and 3 million tons were recovered.
In 2009, Americans threw away almost 9 million tons of glass. That amount could fill enough tractor trailers to stretch from New York to Los Angeles and back!
Resources
Over a ton of natural resources are conserved for every ton of glass recycled, including 1,300 pounds of sand, 410 pounds of soda ash, 380 pounds of limestone, and 160 pounds of feldspar.
That means that Americans wasted around 11 million pounds of sand with the glass bottles discarded in 2009. That amount could fill every room in the White House with sand 12 feet deep!
Recycled Content
Glass container manufacturers use up to 70% recycled glass, or “cullet.”
A glass container can go from a recycling bin to a store shelf in as few as 30 days.
Energy
Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours, power a computer for 30 minutes, or a television for 20 minutes.
Use of cullet in place of raw material saves energy because it melts at a lower temperature. That means it also emits less carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide, two greenhouse gasses.
Paper Recycling
In 2010, Americans recovered 63.5% of U.S. paper— an 89% increase in recovery since 1990. However, we threw away $2.8 billion worth of paper!
In 2010, Americans trashed enough paper to cover 26,700 football fields or 17,800 soccer fields in paper three feet deep.
Access
87% (268 million) of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs.
Recycled Content
31% of the paper and paperboard recovered in the U.S. in 2010 went to produce containerboard (i.e. corrugated boxes) and 12% went to produce boxboard (i.e. cereal boxes).
As of 2010, 80 percent of U.S. paper mills (115 mills) relied on recycled paper. In fact, it supplied 37 percent of their material.
Economics
Nearly 40% of the paper collected for recycling in the U.S. in 2010 was exported to China and other nations.
Energy
Producing recycled paper takes 40% less energy than producing paper from virgin wood pulp.
Resources
It takes 24 trees to make one ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper.
Using recycled scrap paper instead of virgin material saves 7,000 gallons of water per ton of paper produced.
Recycled paper production creates 74 percent less air pollution and 35 percent less water pollution than virgin paper production.
Plastics Recycling
In 2009, almost 30 million tons of plastics were generated in the United States, and only around 2 million tons were recovered.
In 2009, 2.12 million tons of plastics (of all kinds) were recycled in the United States. However, that was only 7.1% of all plastics generated in 2009.
In 2009, the plastic bottle recycling rate reached a record high of 2.5 billion pounds, or 28% of all plastic bottles consumed in the United States.
Economics
In 2009, $485 million worth of plastic was wasted in the United States. That’s enough for 1,000 households to live on the U.S. median income for nearly a decade.
Accessibility
94% of Americans have access to plastic bottle recycling and 40% of the population can also recycle other types of plastic containers, like dairy tubs and lids.
Within the 100 largest cities via a 2,500-community person survey, the percentage of the population with access to recycle plastic containers in addition to bottles has nearly doubled since 2008.
Recycled content
If all 8 billion pounds of plastic bottles produced in the U.S. in 2009 had been recycled, the material could have produced 22 million extra large t-shirts.
The amount of plastic bottles recycled in 2009, provided enough raw material for about 7 million shirts to be made.
44 percent increase in 2009 of RPET (Recycled PET) used in food and beverage bottles.
Energy
Every pound of recycled PET used in place of virgin material reduces energy use in plastic production by 84% and greenhouse gas emissions by 71%
Plastic bags and films Recycling
In 2009, over 855 million pounds of plastic bags and wraps were recycled in the U.S. – up 31% percent from 2005.
Americans recycled 200 million more pounds of plastic bags and film in 2009 than we recycled in 2005.
Economics
Only 9 percent of plastic bags, sacks, and wraps were recycled in 2009. That means 3,470 tons – or $694,000 worth—were discarded!
Over half of all recovered film was exported in 2009, compared to about 1/4 in 2005.
Steel Recycling
With a 66.2% recycling rate, steel containers are one of the most recycled materials in the United States. Every minute, approximately 20,000 steel cans are recycled in the United States
In 2009, 16 million tons of steel were generated in the U.S., and 5 million tons were recovered.
Each year, more steel is recycled than aluminum, paper, glass and plastic combined.
In the past 50 years, more than 50 percent of the steel produced in this country has been recycled through the steelmaking process.
Economics
In 2009, Americans threw away 10.39 million tons of steel. That amounts to more than $3 billion in wasted material, or enough to buy lunch for everyone in the United States!
Recycled content
Steel producers in the United States use more than 70% recycled steel.
Energy
Recycling steel and tin cans saves between 60 and 74 percent of the energy used to produce them from raw materials.
Resources
Recycling one ton of steel conserves 2500 pounds of iron ore, 1400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone.
Trash
In 2009, we filled United States landfills with trash equivalent to the weight of 88 million cars.
In 2009, Americans produced enough trash to circle the earth 24 times.