What happens to your garbage after it goes into the big noisy truck that wakes you up in the middle of the night? First they crunch it (your garbage) into little pieces, then the truck takes it to the city dump. There they either burn it, bury it, or just leave it to rot. Think that's disgusting? Well you can do something. We all can. How you ask? Start recycling! Surf through these pages to find out how, but first read through our fantastic facts about recycling.
In the USA, people throw away at least 162 tons of garbage a year. It would fill 1000 football fields piled thirty stories high. Each American throws away 4-6 pounds of trash each day. Landfill trash is covered with dirt. Ten percent of America's trash is being recycled. If families recycled things like paper, glass, and aluminum cans, and other things that are in their garbage, trash would be reduced by 25%.
A lot of our trash is paper. If all of the Sunday papers were recycled, more than 500,000 trees a week could be saved. Shredded newspaper would make great animal bedding, and farmers could use it for farm animals to lay on. Businesses and offices use many tons of paper a year. Newspaper and office paper make the best recycling product, but they must be separated. Newspaper recycling mills are needed.
There are two kinds of cardboard-corrugated cardboard and paper cardboard. Corrugated cardboard is a sandwich of two sheets of cardboard with grooved paper in between. Paperboard cardboard can easily be folded by hand, and is one layer of cardboard. A lot of recycled cardboard is paperboard. Paperboard has the made of recycled paper symbol.
Aluminum is easiest to recycle. More than 95% of all canned drinks are sold in aluminum cans. Old aluminum cans can be used for new. Aluminum cans are made from an ore called bauxite. The USA imports it from other countries. It costs a lot of money, and takes a lot of energy to process aluminum from bauxite. That energy is also expensive. When aluminum is recycled is saves 95 percent of that energy. Recycling centers pay millions of dollars to adults and children for collecting aluminum cans and other aluminum products. Aluminum can be used over again and again. Aluminum can be used for anything from little league baseball bats to space vehicles. Aluminum is light weight and durable. Aluminum can make airplanes, trucks, trains, cars, skyscrapers, and it is important in building ships.
A lot of food is sold in tin cans. These cans are made of steel coated with a thin layer of tin. They must be separated from the steel before these two metals can be recycled. Almost 3 million tons of these kinds of cans are thrown out each year. Tin is not mined in North America. It is expensive to import tin. Not all recycling centers will accept tin cans. It takes one hundred years for these cans to decompose in a landfill.
When milk comes in glass bottles and they are sterilized and used again, that is recycling! You can make money by recycling. Making new glass bottles from old bottles is cheaper than making them from new materials and it also saves energy. An average family buys around 150 glass containers each year and only 10% of them are recycled.
Close to 60 billion pounds of plastic is produced every year, and 25% of it is used for packaging food. Two million birds and more than 100,000 mammals are killed in a year by discarded plastic. Scientists are trying to make plastic decompose. Some containers could take 100 years to decompose, and others such as Styrofoam cups, plates, and boxes that contain fast food don't decompose. EVER. Degradable stuff doesn't decompose easily because there is not very much of the right moisture, air, and temperature.
Things such as park benches, landscaping timber, and play ground equipment are made from recycled plastic. Landscape timbers that are made from recycled plastic can last 400 years and do not need to be painted. Motor oil can be cleaned when it is dirty, it doesn't wear out. Four hundred million gallons of dirty oil are dumped each year and pollutes wells, rivers, and lakes! Motor oil that is dumped can give enough electricity for 360,000 homes. Oil can be recycled.
Two hundred million tires are thrown away each year. Thirty-five percent of truck tires are recapped and so are five to ten percent of car tires. They are given new treads and used again. When mixed with asphalt, recycled tires can make airport runways, running tracks, and highway surfaces softer and more flexible. The rubber can be used for doormats and be used to heat cement kilns.
An average of eighteen percent of solid wastes comes from tree trimmings, brush, leaves, and grass clippings. People can reduce it by composting. A lot of communities have centers for composting. Compost ingredients decay in a few months and make a mixture that enriches garden soil and can control weeds when spread around garden plants. People use Christmas tree needles and chips from the trunks for mulch. It can protect plants and enrich soil when spread around trees and shrubs.
Some cities burns garbage to make electricity. It can heat and light houses. Engineers and scientists work to reduce air pollution from the gasses and ash from burning garbage. A lot of communities have laws so people have to separate their garbage so some can be recycled. Cities have fairs where people can learn about recycling and it's importance. Communities have containers to put recycling materials into. By the end of the twentieth century there may not be enough places to put/bury garbage. Schools/youth groups have drives to collect paper, glass, and aluminum for fund raising.
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