RECYCLING

Reduce ~ Reuse ~ Recycle

Trash AWAY, Inc. asks and urges its clients to recycle; not only because it is the law in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. but also because recycling generally prevents the waste of potentially useful materials, reduces the consumption of raw materials and reduces energy usage, which then reduces greenhouse gas emissions when compared to virgin production.

Trash AWAY provides a broader recycling option for its clients. Following are useful guidelines for recycling that you can apply in your community, business or household that use the services of Trash AWAY:



What can be placed in your recycling bins:


Mixed Paper

  • Cardboard
  • Office paper (white and colored)
  • Newspaper and magazines
  • Junk mail
  • Magazines
  • Envelopes (manila, regular & windowed)
  • File folders
  • Computer paper
  • Post It Notes
  • Card stock paper
  • Telephone books
  • Cereal boxes and other food boxes (remove plastic liner)

Commingled Items

  • Aluminum cans
  • Tin cans
  • Glass bottles and jars
  • #1 Plastic bottles (water and soda)
  • #2 Plastic containers (Milk and detergent)
  • #3 – 7 Plastic containers (Yogurt and margarine)

Do NOT recycle these items:

  • Food or soiled paper boxes
  • Styrofoam containers or pellets
  • Takeout food containers (i.e., pizza boxes)
  • Plastic cups, plates or utensils
  • Paper towels, plates or napkins
  • Hardback books
  • Paper towels, plates or napkins
  • Scrap aluminum or non-ferrous metal
  • Light bulbs (please refer to your countie's Web site for CFL recycling)
  • Toxic containers (antifreeze, oil, etc.)
  • Disposable diapers, diapers or rags
  • Window glass or mirrors
  • Ceramics, dishes and glassware
  • Plastic bags
  • Prescription vials
  • Paper towels, plates or napkins
  • Gift wrap
  • Printer cartridges (toner or inkjet)
  • Coffee station waste
  • Cell phones (please refer to your county's Web site for electronic recycling events)
  • Batteries (please refer to your county's Web site for electronic recycling events)
  • Computer or other electronics (please refer to your county's Web site for electronic recycling events)



Recycling Programs by Jurisdiction


To find information about your county or city's recycling requirements click the appropriate link below:




Recycling Facts


Metals

  • Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours—or the equivalent of a half gallon of gasoline.
  • 350,000 aluminum cans are produced every minute!
  • Once an aluminum can is recycled it can be part of a new can within six weeks.
  • During the time it takes you to read this sentence 50,000, 12-ounce aluminum cans are made.
  • An aluminum can that is thrown away still will be a can 500 years from now!
  • There is no limit to the amount of times aluminum can be recycled.
  • We use more than 80 billion aluminum soda cans every year.
  • Every ton of recycled steel saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 pounds of coal and 40 pounds of limestone.


Paper

  • To produce each week's Sunday newspapers 500,000 trees must be cut down.
  • Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.
  • If all our newspaper was recycled we could save about 250 million trees each year!
  • If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers we would save about 25 million trees a year.
  • The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood and other products made from trees. This amounts to about 2 billion trees per year!
  • The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years.
  • Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.
  • Americans use 85 million tons of paper a year; about 680 pounds per person.
  • The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year. Most is packaging and junk mail.


Plastic/Styrofoam

  • Americans use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!
  • Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.
  • American throw away 25 billion Styrofoam coffee cups every year.


Glass

  • Every month we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper.
  • The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
  • A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose—even longer if it's in a landfill.


Trash/Lanfills

  • Although 75 percent of our trash can be recycled the EPA set a national goal of 25 percent for 1992.
  • The first real recycling program was introduced in New York City in the 1890s.
  • By 1924, 83 percent of American cities were separating some trash items to be reused.
  • 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.
  • The U.S. is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5 percent of the world's people generate 40 percent of the world's waste.
  • The U.S. population discards each year 16 billion diapers, 1.6 billion pens, 2 billion razor blades, 220 million car tires and enough aluminum to rebuild the U.S. commercial air fleet four times over.
  • Out of every $10 spent buying things $1 (10 percent) goes for packaging that is thrown away. Packaging represents about 65 percent of all 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.


Miscellaneous

  • More than 20 million Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day using 133 square miles of tinfoil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.
  • McDonald's saves 68 million pounds of packaging per year just by pumping soft drink syrup directly from the delivery truck into tanks in the restaurant instead of shipping the syrup in cardboard boxes!

read more