Recycling Keeps America Beautiful

America Recycles Day is on November 15 each year and is the only nationally-recognized day “dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States.”

This year, the EPA recognizes our nation’s progress with recycling, and how it affects American prosperity. The recycling rate has “more than tripled over the last 30 years to the current rate of 35 percent.”

This growth helps to create an abundance of jobs and wages for Americans and support community development. The most recent data says that “recycling and reuse activities in the U.S. created 757,000 jobs and produced $36 billion in wages in a single year.”

A few GREEN tips for the office:

• Instead of printing hard copies of documents, save them to your hard drive or email to yourself to save paper
• Change your printer settings to be more environmentally friendly. Set to double-sided, use smaller point fonts when possible, and the “fast draft” setting to help save ink
• Opt for paying bills online when possible to save paper
• Reuse envelopes with metal clasps and file folders by sticking a new label over the previous one

Interesting Recycling Facts:

• 60 percent of trash could be recycled
• Aluminum cans can be recycled endlessly
• 80 billion aluminum cans are used each year around the world
• 500,000 trees are cut down just to produce the Sunday newspapers each week
• Each American uses almost 700 pounds of paper each year – most of which is just thrown away
• Americans throw away over 25 trillion Styrofoam cups per year
• 5 million plastic bottles are used in the U.S. every hour — most of which are not recycled
• Plastic bags in the oceans kill a million sea creatures per year