• Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy that would have been used to make new aluminum from virgin material.
  
  
• Recycling steel cans saves 74% of the energy that would have been used to make a new can from virgin material.
  
  
• Recycling a glass bottle can save enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 4 hours.
  
  
• The United States makes enough shrink wrap each year to shrink wrap the state of Texas.
  
  
• Each ton of paper that gets recycled saves about 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space.
  
  
• Recycling is saving enough energy to provide electricity for 9 million homes per year.
  
  
• By 2005, recycling will reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that emitted by 36 million cars.
  
  
• 95% of our nation’s virgin forests have been logged.
  
  
• Recycling saves 3.6 times the amount of energy generated by incineration and 11 times the amount generated by methane recovery at landfills.
  
  
• Most states have less than 20 years of landfill space left.
  
  
• The national recycling rate is 28%. The EPA set a goal of 35%.
  
  
• Plastic is virtually indestructible. If the pilgrims had had plastic bottles, those bottles would still be around today.
  
  

Sources of the above facts and figures: The National Recycling Coalition website and “Recycling in America: a Reference Handbook.” By Debra L. Strong, 1997.