Texans generate an average of one ton of municipal solid waste per person per year. This means together we throw away enough garbage to fill the Astrodome in Houston every two weeks.
The 19.2 million tons of municipal solid waste generated annually in Texas could fill two lanes of Interstate 10 from Beaumont to El Paso 10 feet high.
Americans' total yearly waste would fill a convoy of garbage trucks long enough to wrap around the earth six times or to reach half-way to the moon
Americans throw away enough disposable plates and cups to give the world a picnic 6 times a year.
Every year, we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.
Americans dump the equivalent of more than 21 million shopping bags full of food into landfills every year.
Every year , Americans produce enough Styrofoam cups to circle the earth 436 times.
If you lined up all the Styrofoam cups made in just one day, they would circle the entire planet...and reach a little further, too!
Recycling waste materials supports about six times as many waste-related jobs as there would be if the same materials were treated as trash.
The oil equivalent of 35 Exxon Valdez tankers is dumped into our nation’s rivers, lakes , and streams every year! And used motor oil is far more deadly than crude oil ...
Texans use enough glass bottles and jars to fill the Astrodome every 4-1/2 months.
The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will keep a light bulb burning for 4 hours.
Leaves can account for 75% of the solid waste in the fall.
Aluminum facts
If you throw away an aluminum can, it wastes as much energy as if you filled that can half full of gasoline and poured it on the ground.
In 1989, Americans threw away enough aluminum cans to build 6,000 DC-10 airplanes.
Recycling one aluminum can saves enough electricity to power a TV or a 100-watt light bulb for three hours.
An aluminum can will litter the Earth for 500 years.
Making a can from recycled aluminum uses 90% less energy than making a can from scratch and cuts related air pollution by 95%.
Plastic Facts
Americans throw away 2 million plastic bottles an hour.
PET (polyethylene terephthalate, recycling code #1)soda bottles are the most recycled plastic containers.
Five recycled 2-liter PET bottles make enough fiberfill to stuff an adult ski jacket. Thirty-five recycled PET bottles make enough fiberfill for a sleeping bag.
About a third of all the carpeting made in the U.S. has recycled PET bottles in it.
Recycled HDPE (high density polyethylene, recycling code #2) used in juice bottles and milk jugs can be turned into items like flowerpots, trash cans, traffic barrier cones and curbside recycling bins
The HDPE is estimated to be worth about $300-$400 a ton. We throw away about 868 million pounds of it annually (about 75% of what’s produced). That’s an estimated $130 million worth of plastic.
It takes 1,050 recycled milk jugs to make a six-foot plastic park bench.
Paper facts
Americans throw away enough office and writing paper annually to build a wall 12 feet high stretching from Los Angeles to New York City.
Using recycled instead of virgin paper for one print run of the Sunday edition of The New York Time would save 75,000 trees.
100 million trees are cut down every year to make the paper for “junk mail”. One-half of junk mail is thrown away unopened and unread.
Recycling half the world’s paper would free 20 million acres of forestland.
Every Sunday 500,000 trees could be saved if everyone recycled their newspapers.
You would make only 700 paper bags out of a 15-year old tree. In a big supermarket they could be used in less than an hour!
If you stacked up all the paper an average American uses in a year, the pile would be as tall as a two-story house!
Every day American businesses generate enough paper to circle the earth 20 times.
Recycling a 4 foot stack of newspaper saves a 40 foot pine tree .
The production of a ton of paper requires 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water and more energy per ton than glass or steel. It's enough energy to heat a home for 6 months.
One mature tree absorbs about 50 lb of CO2 each year.
Other environmental facts