Amazing Waste and Recycling Facts - How Big is YOUR Footprint?
By Jacob Inman, for Revive Your Life
What impact are YOU having on the planet?
As Americans, we waste…a lot. As a result of living in a wealthy nation, many have bought into the mentality that an endless supply of resources exists. What’s more, we’ve become a throw-away society which relies on cheap, low-quality products of which we have little guilt in discarding. For decades, we’ve taken for granted the abundance of the most essential resources needed for life and have downplayed the amount of refuse we produce. Simply put, we’re a society which would rather replace than reuse.
You may say, “I agree with you. As a country, we should recycle more of what we use and throw away less. Americans need to recycle!”
I would say, let’s move away from all of this “we” talk and get right down to the impact that you and your family have on the environment. By making it personal, you’ll be able to get a better understanding of the ecological footprint that you leave behind when you’re no longer on this earth.
I’ve gathered some interesting facts as it relates to the use of natural resources and the creation of waste. The base facts have been compiled from various sources including the Environmental Protection Agency, Earth911.com, and the National Recycling Coalition. Where necessary, I have scaled the data in such a way to make it representative of the impact that a single individual (you) has on the environment over the course of a lifetime. These facts are representative of a typical individual in the U.S. Unless you are a green-freak, it is very likely that the statistics here provide a direct representation of your personal impact on the environment. I, of course, welcome all polite corrections to this information. Let’s get started…
- You use seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from trees. Over a lifetime, this amounts to approximately 525 trees - the amount of trees that would cover nearly an acre of land.
- Over your lifetime, you throw out about 90,000 pounds of organic garbage that could be composted. As an alternative, you will spend thousands of dollars on chemical fertilizers as a means of enhancing your lawn and garden. These chemicals have the potential to infiltrate our water supply.
- You produce approximately 4.4 pounds of solid waste each day. This adds up to almost 60 tons of trash over the course of your lifetime.
- You use paper more than any other material. During your lifetime, you use more than 53,500 pounds (27 tons) of paper. Paper accounts for more than 25 percent of all landfill waste. By recycling only half of your total usage, you would save 221 trees, 91,000 gallons of water, and 1,027 gallons of oil - all used in the production of new paper.
- It takes approximately 83 trees to produce the junk-mail that you will receive in your lifetime. You will waste 8 full months of your life opening this junk-mail.
- You will throw out approximately two tons of steel or “tin” cans in your lifetime, all of which could be recycled. Recycling two tons of steel conserves 5,000 lbs. of iron ore, 2,800 lbs. of coal, and 240 lbs. of limestone from natural resources.
- By recycling all of your waste newsprint, cardboard, glass, and metal, you would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 63,750 pounds during your lifetime. This emissions savings is equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide produced by your car over a period of 5 years.
- Over the course of your lifetime, you will throw out approximately 33,750 beverage containers that could have been recycled. Of those, 28,050 will have been aluminum cans.
- By throwing out the aluminum cans noted above, you would have wasted as much energy as if you would have poured 1,315 gallons of gasoline into the ground.
- Recycling all of these aluminum cans would save enough energy to power your television for three hours for every single day of your life.
- Of the thousands of plastic water bottles you will discard over your lifetime, it takes the plastic of only 5 bottles to make the fiberfill used to stuff one ski jacket.
- Your family consumes 182 gallons of soda, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk, and 26 gallons of bottled water a year. Have you been recycling all of these containers?
- Having a baby? Your baby will generate about a ton of garbage each year.
- Individuals in many countries are limited to at most 3 gallons of water per day which would result in the use of approximately 82,125 gallons over their lifetime. You use approximately 150 gallons per day which will result in a lifetime usage of 4,106,250 gallons.
- As noted above, many individuals in certain countries will use only 82,125 gallons of water over their lifetime. If you run the water while brushing your teeth, you will waste nearly three times that amount (219,000 gallons) of water during your life.
These facts speak to the importance of recycling and waste management practices. Unfortunately, they also point out the gross misuse of resources and the excessive amount of waste that we produce.
As you can see, we each contribute more than our fair share to the slow destruction of planet Earth. Rather than waiting for everyone else to do their part, begin by making the necessary changes in your own life to reduce waste and reuse or recycle paper, glass, plastic, and steel products. You can no longer say that your efforts don’t make a difference!
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[...] Inman presents Amazing Waste and Recycling Facts - How Big is YOUR Footprint? posted at Revive Your Life. As Americans, we waste…a lot. As a result of living in a wealthy [...]
[...] it’s easier than ever to be wise about what we throw away. When it comes to disposable, recycle EVERYTHING you can. If your town doesn’t have recycling pick up, chances are a nearby city does. So investigate [...]
[...] Amazing Waste and Recycling Facts - How Big is YOUR Footprint? reviveyourlife.com/green-living/amazing-waste-and-recycling-facts-how-big-is-your-footprint – view page – cached As Americans, we waste…a lot. As a result of living in a wealthy nation, many have bought into the mentality that an endless supply of resources — From the page [...]
All very true… How was the 150 gallons of water per day calculated?
I’d like to know the sources of these statistics.
Particularly on the amount of trees used in a single person’s lifetime.