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  • The nation’s overall recycling rate has grown from 11% to 27% in the past 10 years
  • There are over 7,500 recycling programs, and 3,000 yard waste composting programs in the U.S.
  • Every minute an average of 113,204 aluminum beverage cans are recycled.
  • The American public throws away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire US commercial air fleet every 3 months.
  • If the Pilgrims had used aluminum cans at the first Thanksgiving, the cans would still be around.
  • Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water.
  • Americans use more than 67 million tons of paper per year, or 580 pounds per person.
  • America's daily use of computer paper could go around the world 40 times.
  • It takes more than 500,000 trees to make the newspapers Americans use in one Sunday.
  • The steel industry recycles nearly 19 billion steel cans into new products each year - about 600 cans recycled every second!
  • Annually, enough energy is saved by recycling steel to supply the city of Los Angeles with almost a decade worth of electricity.
  • It is estimated that if all aerosol cans were recycled in North America, there would be enough steel to make 160,000 new cars.
  • The U.S. Generates approximately 208 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) per year that’s 4.3 pounds per person per day.
  • Packaging makes up about 1/3 (by weight) of household trash and about 10% of the price of food.
  • Each year Americans throw away 25 trillion Styrofoam cups.
  • For each bag of garbage we take to the curb, industry creates the equivalent of 71 bags of waste.
  • Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail per year. About 44% of junk mail is never opened. Every person in the U.S. receives the equivalent of one and a half trees per year.
  • Nationwide, leaves and yard trimmings amount to approximately 28 million tons (or 13.4 %) of the waste stream.
  • Each year, the average person creates about 360 pounds of food and yard waste.
  • 27% of all food produced in North America is wasted.