What is Recycling?

Recycling is collecting used or waste material for reprocessing of those materials into new products. Recycling reduces the use of raw materials and reduces energy consumption compared to producing products from virgin material.

Once the collected recyclables reach the Lansing Recycling Center, they are sorted into material types. It is important to properly prepare your recyclable materials to increase the value of the recyclable material and for easier reprocessing at the recycling facility. The processed material is then bailed and shipped to companies who can then use the material to create new products that end up back in your hands. Recycling is easy, everyone can participate, and if we each do our part we can have a significant impact on conserving water, reducing energy conservation, and conserving precious landfill space.

Recycling Facts

	An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover over 50 acres of space -- that's almost 40 football fields. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.
	Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute!
	A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.
	Motor oil never wears out, it just gets dirty. Oil can be recycled, re-refined and used again, reducing our reliance on imported oil.
	On average, each one of us produces 4.4 pounds of solid waste each day. This adds up to almost a ton of trash per person, per year.
	A typical family consumes 182 gallons of soda, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk, and 26 gallons of bottled water a year. That's a lot of containers -- make sure they're recycled!

	About one-third of an average dump is made up of packaging material!
	Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted.
	The U.S. is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5% of the world's people generate 40% of the world's waste.
	The highest point in Hamilton County, Ohio (near Cincinnati) is "Mount Rumpke." It is actually a mountain of trash at the Rumpke sanitary landfill towering 1045 ft. above sea level.
	The US population discards each year 16,000,000,000 diapers, 1,600,000,000 pens, 2,000,000,000 razor blades, 220,000,000 car tires, and enough aluminum to rebuild the US commercial air fleet four times over.
	Out of every $10 spent buying things, $1 (10%) goes for packaging that is thrown away. Packaging represents about 65% of household trash.
	On average, it costs $30 per ton to recycle trash, $50 to send it to the landfill, and $65 to $75 to incinerate it.

	Your household produces as much as a ton of garbage a year, at least a quarter of which could be recycled.
	It’s just as easy to drop an empty can or newspaper into your recycling bin than into your regular household garbage.
	The average American uses 580 lbs. of paper each year - that's over 1½ lbs. per day.
	Every year, Americans throw away enough office and writing paper to build a wall 12 feet high from New York City to Los Angeles.