Waste Facts

• Almost 1/3 of the waste generated the U.S. is packaging. (http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html)

• Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour and every year, Americans make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.

• Americans toss out enough paper & plastic cups, forks and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times.

• More than half of the world's municipal waste is generated in developed countries. In the United States, for example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the average American produces well over .75 tons of trash each year. (http://www.gdrc.org/uem/waste/key-facts.html)
  

• At least 60 per cent of the countries that submitted national reports to the United Nations in advance of the 1992 Earth Summit said that solid waste disposal was among their biggest environmental concerns.

• Household waste arisings for 2004/05 were 846,048 tonnes per annum, which is an increase of just over 14,000 tonnes on 2003/04. (http://www.integra.org.uk/about/stats200405.html)

• Only about one-tenth of all solid garbage in the United States gets recycled. (http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html)

• Every year we fill enough garbage trucks to form a line that would stretch from the earth, halfway to the moon, Each day the United States throws away enough trash to fill 63,000 garbage truck.

• Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.

• As of 1992, 14 billion pounds of trash were dumped into ocean annually around the world.

• In 1979, there were an estimated 18,500 landfills in the nation. In 1990 there were only about 6,300, and by 1995 it was estimated that only about 3,000 would still be open. In just 16 years the number of landfills dropped by 84%. During that same time there was an 80% increase in the amount of trash generated.

Hey, we are not going to save the world or rid America's Landfills of all plastics, but we can do something. I believe that taking a closer look at what we use and throw out everyday will help us make some small changes. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!