Paper
• American’s use more than 67 million tons of paper per year, or 580 pounds per person.
• Every year enough paper is thrown away to make a 12 foot wall from New York to California.
• One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year.
• The average school tosses 38 tons of paper more than 8 million sheets a year!
• Every ton = 220,000 sheets of paper.
• It can take just seven days to recycle newspapers and magazines back into new ones.
• The EPA has found that recycling causes 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution.
• Recycling 1 ton of newspaper eliminates 3 cubic meters of landfill.
• Decomposing paper releases biogas such as methane, which is a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.
Junk Mail
• American’s receive almost 4.5 million tons of junk mail per year.
• About 44% of junk mail is never opened.
• Every person in the US receives the equivalent of one and a half trees per year or approximately 560 pieces of junk mail per year.
• The average person gets 1.5 personal letters per week compared to 10.8 pieces of junk mail.
• Approximately 40% of the solid waste mass that makes up our landfills is paper and cardboard.
• 100 million trees are ground up each year to produce junk mail.
Good News
• The U.S. paper industry has set a goal to recover 55% of all the paper consumed in the U.S. by 2012.
• Paper packaging recovery was responsible for about 76.6% of packaging materials recycled with more than 24 million pounds recovered in 2005.
 
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