Litter Facts
- Every 2 weeks, Americans throw away enough glass bottles and jars to fill the once mighty Twin Towers!
- Every 3 months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire U.S. Commercial air fleet!
- Glass has no known disintegration rate.
- The energy saved by recycling one aluminum can would keep a 100 watt light bulb burning 3.5 hours.
- A mature tree is left standing for every 115 lbs. of newspaper that is recycled.
- A fire starts every 12 minutes due to litter. This is especially dangerous during periods of draught.
- If all Sunday newspapers across the U.S. were recycled, we would save 500,000 trees PER WEEK! AN ENTIRE RAIN FOREST!
- American's represent 5% of the world's population, but produce over 50% of the world's trash. We are all responsible for the consequences this has on our planet.
- 2.5 gallons of fuel are used to manufacture 1 tire.
- In 1982, Americans spent 8 BILLION DOLLARS to bury their trash. It is much more today.
- There is no way to dispose of used tires -- they come back to the surface when buried in landfills. If just 1% of U.S. roads were resurfaced with asphalt rubber, 50 million scrap tires would be consumed.
- Americans fill 63,000 garbage trucks per day, and generate 195 million tons of solid waste each year -- enough to fill a convoy of trucks stretching from here to the moon!
- Only 11.6% of scrap tires are recycled.
- Only 11% of Americans recycle.
- If everyone in Limestone County picked up one piece of litter each day, nearly 400,000 pieces of litter would be removed from our roads and properties each week.
- Less than 1% of all the water in the world is available for drinking and agriculture (fresh water). Don't pollute!
- 70 million gallons of gasoline is wasted every 2 days due to underinflated tires and poorly maintained engines.
- It will take approximately 450 years for a plastic bottle to completely disintegrate.
- The chemicals and gasses trapped in a cigarette filter can be deadly to wild animals and fish that mistake them for food.
- 50% of landfill space is taken up by paper -- something that is so easy to recycle.