
• An average American family consumes about 182 gallons of soda, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk and 26 gallons of bottled water per year.
• Recycling one aluminum can save enough energy to run a television for about three hours.
• Americans use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
• Most glass bottles and jars contain at least 25% recycled glass.
• Letting a bathroom faucet run for five minutes uses as much energy as letting a 60-watt light bulb burn for 14 hours.
• Almost 50% of office paper is recovered through recycling.
• The average American uses 650 pounds of paper each year.
• Recycling 2,000 pounds of paper saves 17 trees.
• Almost 97% of the world's water is salty or otherwise undrinkable. Another 2% is locked in ice caps and glaciers. Only 1% is usable for agriculture, manufacturing and personal needs.
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating dump located in the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii. The trash found there is almost 80% plastic, and weighs 3.5 million tons.
• The U.S. produces a quarter of the world's waste, making it the number one garbage producer in the world.
• Americans throw away 25 billion Styrofoam cups every year.
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