The average American throws away 4 pounds of trash daily. Considering the fact that there are over 300,000,000 people living within the United States it is easy to see how the trash situation can get out of hand. In fact, it’s estimated that the US generates around 230 million tons of trash a year. The good news is that with that much trash there is a lot of room for improvement. Here are some statistics from The Clean Air Council that demonstrate how much room for improvement there really is.
- Only about 1/10 of solid garbage in the U.S. gets recycled.
- Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
- In the U.S., an additional 5 million tons of waste is generated during the holidays. Four million tons of this is wrapping paper and shopping bags.
- Americans throw away enough aluminum cans to rebuild our commercial air fleet every three months.
The good news is that a little recycling can go a long way.
- For every ton of plastic bottles that are recycled, 3.8 barrels of oil are saved.
- Aluminum has a quick turn-around as a recycled material. It can be back on the shelf as a new can in as little as six weeks.
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Tags: cans, Daily, garbage, plastic, recycling, reuse, Statistics, Sunrise Packaging, trash, Us
Thanks for sharing these stats. I’d like to see every public trash can have a separate container for collecting recycling, since it seems like it’s often much harder to recycle in public.
But the most important part about this garbage and Recycling System is that you never have to touch the top or get your hands near the dirty surfaces of the cans. When you’re ready to throw something away simply place your hand in front of the infrared sensor which opens the can automatically. Once you’ve thrown away your waste, in the proper container of course, the lid will close again after three seconds without detecting movement. Don’t like carrying your trash bags all through the house when they’re full? This handy system also has wheels to move your trash and recycling wherever you want it.
Best Regards,