Garbage

Each American makes five pounds of garbage every day. "Garbage" is the stuff we don't want anymore, the junk we think is useless. It's the rejects we don't want to deal with and the cast-offs from the way we live. It comes from our homes, businesses, government agencies, and institutions like schools and hospitals. Garbage is also known as "municipal solid waste."

Americans create nearly 210 million tons of municipal solid waste each year:

• Paper and textiles make up 42%.
• Metal, plastic, and glass make up 23%.
• Yard waste (like grass clippings and leaves) make up 18%.
• Food waste makes up 7% (and most of the smell).
• Smaller categories like hazardous materials make up the remaining 10%.

In the never-ending search for convenience, we've filled our homes and work places with time and energy-saving products and gadgets. Television images and 52 billion pieces of direct mail advertising flood our lives each year offering Bigger! and Better! stuff we can't live without - and we don't.

We bury most of our garbage in landfills where it will stay for hundreds of years. We burn some of it, but burning pollutes the air and it still leaves ash to bury. There is no way to eliminate all our garbage. The answer is to reduce the amount we make, then find the most appropriate way to reuse, repair or recycle what's left.

• Aluminum Americans recycle over half of our aluminum. Making a new aluminum can out of an old one saves the energy used to make the can from bauxite ore. It also prevents nearly all the industrial waste and pollution caused by mining new ore. New cans are back in the store in as little as 6 weeks.
• Paper Americans recycle about 38% of all paper. Paper fibers can be recycled several times before they become too weak and must be discarded. Using recycled paper to make new paper saves much of the energy and resources consumed by making paper from logs.
• Glass Americans recycle about 20% of our glass. Making recycled glass uses less energy than making new glass because crushed recycled glass melts at a lower temperature than the virgin components of glass.
• Plastic Americans recycle only 5% of all plastic and 45% of the type of plastic used to make soda bottles.