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Steel Facts*
The overall steel recycling rate is a very impressive 64%.
During
the last 10 years, more than one trillion pounds of steel scrap
have been recycled.
Recycling steel annually saves enough energy to power
approximately 18 million North American households for one year.
Eighty-one percent of all obsolete appliances end up in recycling
facilities.
Twenty-five percent of the steel used in cars and their internal
parts is recycled steel. It is as strong or stronger than the
steel from which it has been recycled. The nearly 13.5 million
cars recycled in 1999 would yield enough steel to produce 48
million steel utility poles-that's one-third of the utility poles
in the entire United States.
By 2002, an estimated 25% of all new homes built in the United
States will be framed in recycled steel.
In 1998, the recycling rate for steel cans was 56%-about 17
billion steel cans. Think of it: that's 545 cans recycled per
second, all of which were manufactured into new consumer goods.
Virtually every car taken off the road (nearly 98 out of 100) is
recycled for its steel content.
Since 1972, the amount of energy required to produce a ton of
steel has been reduced by 34%.
The steel used in new appliances is made with approximately 28
percent recycled
steel.
*Source:
The Steel Alliance
 Paper Facts*
In 1999, the United States recovered 45% of all paper used - 47.3
million tons.
The
paper recovered for recycling in the past 10 years would fill more
than 3.5 square miles of landfill space stacked 50 feet high.
More paper is recovered in America for recycling than all other
materials combined.
More than one-third of the raw material fiber used by American
paper manufacturers comes from recycled paper;
*Source:
American Forest and Paper Assn.
 Aluminum
Facts*
Much of aluminum's recycling value comes from the energy saved
when making aluminum from recycled material; it requires 95% less
energy than making it from primary bauxite ore.
Altogether, aluminum from recycled cans and other products
accounts for about 32% of the aluminum industry's raw material
metal supply.
Recycling is so efficient that it can take as few as 60 days for
an aluminum can to be collected, melted, made into a new can, and
awaiting purchase on a supermarket shelf.
*Source: The Aluminum Association
 Plastic
Facts*
In 1998, the amount of post-consumer plastic bottles of all types
that were recycled increased to 1.45 billion pounds, a 7% increase
-or 89 million additional pounds- over the bottle recycling rate
of 1997.
PET bottle recycling increased by more than 9% or 61 million
pounds-in 1998, to 710 million pounds. The PET bottle-recycling
rate is now 24.4 percent.
Bottles made from HDPE make up the highest number of plastic
bottles recycled-nearly 734 million pounds. In 1998, HDPE bottles
accounted for more than 50% of all bottle recycling. The HDPE
bottle recycling rate is now 25.2%.
PET and HOPE accounted for more than 99% of the 1.45 billion
pounds of bottles recycled in 1998. These two resins also
accounted for more than 94% of all resins used in the manufacture
of plastic bottles that year .
*Source:
American Plastics Council
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