writing paper annually to build a 

 wall 12 feet high from Los 

 Angeles to New York City. 



• We throw away enough glass bot- 

 tles and jars to fill the 1,350-foot 

 twin towers of the World Trade 

 Center every two weeks. 



• We discard enough aluminum to 

 rebuild our entire commercial 

 airline fleet every three months. 

 All of these disposables are add- 

 ing up to a heap of trash— 160 

 million tons— and a national gar- 

 bage bill that totals more than $10 

 billion. Current waste disposal prac- 

 tices mean 80 percent of it will be 

 buried in landfills and 10 percent 

 burned in incinerators. 



But what about the rest? 



It's recycled— meaning it is 

 reprocessed, reformed and reused. 

 It's not lying in a landfill. 



And that's what has city, county 

 and state officials excited from 

 coast to coast. Many landfills are 

 near capacity, and with land prices 

 skyrocketing, municipalities are 

 hard pressed to find a place to 

 bury their rubbish. 



That's why we see wandering 

 garbage barges on the nightly 

 news and municipal refuse rolling 

 ashore with the incoming tide. 



But recycling offers hope. It saves 

 money, energy and natural resources. 



Moneywise, recycling saves dol- 

 lars that would otherwise have to 

 pay for the burial or burning of 

 refuse. And it can generate income. 

 Paper, aluminum, glass and plastic 

 can be sold to recycling companies. 



From an industrial standpoint, us- 

 ing recycled materials requires less 

 energy than raw materials. Accord- 

 ing to the Environmental Defense 

 Fund, making a can out of recycled 

 aluminum takes only 5 percent of 

 the energy needed to make an 

 aluminum can from raw material. 



And recycling conserves natural 



Photo by Scott Taylor 



m 



resources such as forests and 

 saves habitats. 



But most folks think recycling 

 means only glass, aluminum and 

 paper. However, plastic can be 

 recycled, too, says Barry Appelget 

 of Mountain Polymers, a plastic 

 recycling company in Greensboro. 



Plastic soft drink bottles and milk 

 jugs can be reformed into flower 

 pots, carpet pads, toys, hose pipe 

 and fill for pillows. 



Plastic recycling is a fledgling in- 

 dustry, but one that is growing fast, 

 Appelget says. And no wonder. 

 There is plenty of plastic to recycle. 



Appelget says 57.2 billion pounds 

 of plastic are produced in the 



mm 



All of these items can be recycled. 



United States every year, and 15 

 billion pounds of that is one-time- 

 use packaging. 



Needless to say, much of that 

 plastic ends up in our garbage. By 

 volume, 25 percent of all trash 

 buried in landfills is plastic. 



And the qualities that make 

 plastic so popular— lightweight, 

 durability and strength— also mean 

 that it can take more than 400 

 years to degrade. 



Although plastic's longevity counts 

 against it in the landfill, it's a 

 positive factor for recycling. Its 

 durability and strength mean it can 



