Residential recycling saves tax dollars. All of the paper and bottles & cans collected in Baltimore County’s residential recycling program are sorted at the County’s materials recovery facility in Cockeysville. In recent years the sale of these recyclables (for remanufacture into new products) has yielded more than $2 million annually ($5 million in fiscal year 2008), helping offset the overall costs of the County’s solid waste/recycling system. In addition, recycling avoids the disposal costs that would be incurred if that material were thrown in the trash. Baltimore County currently pays at least $37 per ton to dispose of trash, and those costs are increasing. Recycling also conserves natural resources, saves energy, and reduces pollution. - For every ton of steel recycled, 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and 120 pounds of limestone are conserved.
- Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a television or operate a computer for three hours.
- Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within sixty days.
- Recycling one ton of aluminum saves the energy equivalent of the amount of electricity used by the average home in 10 years.
- To make one ton of paper using recycled fiber saves 17 trees, 360 gallons of water, 100 gallons of gasoline, and keeps 60 pounds of pollutants out of the air.
- If everyone in the United States recycled all of their newspapers, we could save about 250 million trees every year.
- Recycling a ton of plastic bottles saves the energy equivalent of 318 gallons of gasoline.
- Five recycled plastic soft drink bottles makes enough fiberfill for a man’s ski jacket. Thirty-six recycled bottles can make one square yard of carpet.
- Recycling plastic uses 80 percent less energy than manufacturing plastic from virgin materials.
Revised February 20, 2009 |
Courthouse 