More than 37% of the fiber used to make new paper products in the U.S. comes from recycled sources, and making new paper using recycled paper reduces the related contribution to air pollution by 95%. Americans throw away enough office paper each year to build a 12-foot high wall from Seattle to NY (a new wall every year!) Recycling a stack of newspaper just 3 feet high saves one tree.

More than 28 billion glass bottles and jars end up in landfills every year -- that is the equivalent of filling up two Empire State Buildings every three weeks, but an amazing fact about glass is that it can be recycled and remanufactured an infinite amount of times and never wear out. Making glass from recycled material cuts related water pollution by 50%! Recycling just one glass jar saves enough electricity to light a bulb for 20 hours.

Over 90% of all products shipped in the US are shipped in corrugated boxes, which totals more than 400 billion square feet of cardboard. Recycling cardboard only takes 75% of the energy needed to make new cardboard. Nearly 80% of all retailers and grocers recycle their cardboard, and recycling 1 ton of cardboard saves 46 gallons of oil.

Almost half of the food in the U.S. goes to waste - approximately 3,000 pounds per second. Food waste can be used for composting and sold to farmers, or it can be provided as a food source for local animal farms that meet federal, state, and local regulations for food scrap usage. Food scraps make up almost 12% of municipal solid waste generated in the U.S., and many schools and businesses are starting to compost food waste on-site. Food and paper waste used for food can also be composted into nutrient-rich soil and sold to farmers.