10 Recycling Facts for America Recycles Day
November 13, 2014
Saturday is America Recycles Day! No matter where in the world you’re from, any day that puts the spotlight on our environment is a cause for celebration.
At Ernest, we feel very strongly about creating sustainable packaging solutions. We’re all on this planet together, so let’s do everything we can to not screw it up.
“Yeah, but is recycling really a big deal? Does is actually have an impact?” you might be asking.
The short answer: Of course it is!
Don’t believe us? Check out these 10 facts about reycling that are sure to blow your mind:
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More than 75% of waste is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it.
Think about what’s in your garbage? Glass, plastic, paper? All recyclable. Food waste? Compostable, which is a natural form of recycling.
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Americans only recycle about 5% of our plastics.
Pull the plastic out of the trash, fool! It doesn’t belong there!
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Plastic takes up to 1,000 years to degrade in a landfill.
That’s almost as long as all of “The Hobbit” movies!
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In a single year, the US produces enough plastic to shrink wrap Texas.
Yeehaw! That’s a ton of plastic. Actually, that’s thousands of tons of plastic.
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Americans throw away enough plastic bottles each year to circle the Earth four times.
As much as we’d love to see a “Gravity” sequel about taking water bottles to the moon, that’s crazy!
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More than 2 billion books, 350 million magazines and 24 billion newspapers are published in the US every year! That’s a total of 69 million tons of paper and paperboard!
That’s the weight of 209 blue whales — way too much paper to just toss in a landfill.
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Recycling a single ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil and 4,000 kilowatt hours of electricity!
That’s enough energy to power an average American house for five months!
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More than 90% of products shipped in the US are shipped in corrugated boxes — totaling more than 400 billion square feet of cardboard!
We want to create packaging that has maximum protection and minimum waste.
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Nearly 80% of all retailers recycle their cardboard.
This is great! Retailers are some of the biggest users of cardboard.
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Manufacturing recycled paper only uses 60% of the energy needed to make paper from new materials.
It saves trees and energy.
America Recycles Day is great. However, it’s about more than America. It’s important to everybody! It’s more than just recycling. We need to reduce and reuse as well. It’s also more than just a day. Sustainability and minimizing waste need to be an everyday thing for all of us!
Ernest works hard to minimize the amount of waste in your packaging. We put a lot of thought into how we can make sure that our customer’s items are packaged as securely as possible while using the least amount of material.
Do you need to trash your current packaging? Contact us today to discuss how to build better, more efficient and sustainable solutions.
