Recycle at Work Intranet

... and why they are not valid!

Well-run recycling programs cost less than landfills and incinerators.
The more people recycle, the cheaper it gets.
Recycling helps families save money, especially in communities with pay-as-you-throw programs.
Recycling generates revenue to help pay for itself, while incineration and landfilling do nt.
The U.S. Recycling Economic Information (REI) Study is an unprecedented national study that demonstrates the importance of recycling and reuse to the U.S. economy, considering direct and indirect economic impacts: www.epa.gov/jtr/econ/rei-rw/rei-rw.htm.

Landfills and incinerators don't pay for themselves; in fact they cost more than recycling programs.
Recycling creates more than one million U.S. jobs in recycled product manufacturing alone. There are 10 times more jobs in recycling than there are in disposal.
Hundreds of companies, including Hewlett Packard, Bank of America, and the U.S. Postal Service, have saved millions of dollars through their recycling programs.
Through recycling, the U.S. is saving enough energy to provide electricity for 9 million homes per year.

Recycling results in a net reduction in ten major categories of air pollutants and eight major categories of water pollutants.
Manufacturing with recycled materials, with very few exceptions, saves energy and water and produces less air and water pollution than manufacturing with virgin materials.
Recycling trucks often generate less pollution than garbage trucks because they do not idle as long at the curb.

94% of the natural resources America uses are non-renewable (up from 59% in 1900 and 88% in 1945).
Recycling saves non-renewable resources. With recycling, 20% more wood will need to be harvested by 2010 to keep up with demand. Without recycling, 80% more wood would need to be harvested.
95% of our nation's virgin forests have been cut down and less than 20% of paper manufactured in the U.S. comes from tree farms.
It takes 95% less energy to recycle aluminum than it does to make it from raw materials. Making recycled steel saves 60%, recycled newspaper 40%, recycled plastics 70%, and recycled glass 40%.
Landfilling never saves energy.
Recycling saves 3.6 times the amount of energy generated by incineration and 11 times the amount generated by methane recovery at a landfill.
Using scrap steel instead of virgin ore to make new steel takes 40% less water and creates 97% less mining waste.
Tree farms and reclaimed mines are not ecologically equivalent to natural forests and ecosystems.
Recycling prevents habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and soil erosion associated with logging and mining.

Recycling's true value comes from preventing pollution and saving natural resources and energy, not landfill space.
Recycling is largely responsible for averting the landfill crisis.
The number of landfills is decreasing, while the cost to send waste to them is on the rise.
Space is very limited and if we save the space today we will have it for tomorrow.

Government supports lots of services that the free market wouldn't provide, such as the delivery of running water, electricity, and mail to our homes.
Unlike most public services, recycling does function within the market economy, and quite successfully.
If the market were truly free, long-standing subsidies that favor virgin materials and landfills would not exist, and recycling could compete on a level playing field.

Prices may fluctuate as they do for any commodity, but domestic and international markets exist for all materials collected in curbside recycling programs.
Demand for recycled materials has never been greater. American manufacturers rely on recyclables to produce many of the products on your store shelves.
All new steel products contain recycled steel.
Over 1,400 products and 310 manufacturers use post-consumer plastics.
In 1999, recycled paper provided more than 37% of the raw material fiber needed by U.S. paper mills.

California set a goal of 50% diversion of solid waste from disposal by the year 2000. San Jose is currently at 62% (while the state is at 52%). Our new goal is 75% by 2012.
The national recycling rate is 28%. The U.S. EPA has set a goal of 35% and many communities are recycling 50% or more.
Many easily recycled materials are still thrown away. For example, 73% of glass containers, 77% of magazines, 66% of plastic soda and milk bottles, and 45% of newspapers are not recycled.
We are nowhere near our potential, especially if manufacturers make products easier to recycle.

More than 20,000 curbside programs and drop-off centers for recycling are active today because Americans use and support them.
The California Integrated Waste Management Board funded the University of California- Berkeley to quantify and compare the economic benefits of waste disposal and diversion. See the report at are.berkeley.edu/extension/EconImpWaste.pdf.

Source: Environmental Defense Fund

The state generates 92 million tons of waste per year.
The average Californian produces 6 pounds of waste a day.
Californians bought more than 20 billion carbonated and non-carbonated drinks in aluminum, glass, plastic and bi-metal containers last year.
More than 12 billion of those containers were recycled, saving natural resources, conserving energy and extending the life of our landfills (61% recycling rate).
Imagine what we’ll accomplish if we recycle the other 8 billion!

Source: California Integrated Waste Management Board