November 15th America Recycles Day!

Eco-Cycle, a Colorado-based non-profit recycling organization, offers some recycling and environmental facts:

* Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, two 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

* Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every three months. Environmental Defense Fund

* About 80 percent of what Americans throw away is recyclable, yet our recycling rate is just 28 percent. Environmental Protection Agency

* Over one half million trees are saved each year by recycling paper in Boulder County. Eco-Cycle

* There are more roads in our National Forests than the entire U.S. Interstate Highway system. National Forest Protection Alliance

* Recycling creates six times as many jobs as landfilling. Colorado Recycles

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

* Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for three hours. Eco-Cycle

* 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

* If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 1,000 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100 percent recycled, we could save: 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space, and 155 million gallons of water. Seventh Generation Company

* The U.S. is five percent of the world's population but uses 25 percent of its natural resources. Environmental Protection Agency

* Colorado is one of the worst states in the nation in terms of recycling and composting. Learn more about how our efforts are falling well short in the "State of Garbage in America." BioCycle, 2008

Learn more here: http://www.ecocycle.org/index.cfm