Earth Week 2010 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repeat, Rejoice RECYCLE

After you REDUCE and REUSE… It’s time to RECYCLE!

But why do we need to REDUCE and REUSE first? Because RECYCLING uses energy.

How? When we put things in a recycling bin, someone in a truck comes to pick it up. The truck takes it to a factory where machines crunch up the glass, tear up the paper, and melt down the plastic. Then other machines make new stuff out of the old stuff.

All those machines use ENERGY.

So, is RECYCLING bad? NO RECYCLING IS GOOD! Just make sure your reduce and reuse FIRST!

Lots of things that should be recycled end up in the trash. In fact, 2/3 of the stuff that ends up in landfills could have been recycled.

We dump 8 million tons of MAGAZINES into landfills each year.

Americans throw away 25 billion STYROFOAM coffee cups every year.

About 38 billion PLASTIC water bottles end up in landfills every year.

Approximately 90 percent of COMPUTER contents can be reused or recycled. But many computers get thrown away.

Did you know that PAINT can be recycled?

If all our NEWSPAPER were recycled, we could save about 25,000,000 trees a year!

Only about 35 percent of GLASS gets recycled.

What if you are not sure if it can be recycled? Contact the city that you live in. Or go to

REMEMBER… You CAN make a difference!