You should be already familiar with the green symbol for recycling. Those green arrows that make some sort of a circle, surely you have seen it before. But did you know that the symbol was the creation of one Gary Anderson, who in 1970 entered it in an art and design contest organized by Corporation of America. It was supposed to increase awareness of the dangers of not recycling and the increase in damaging the environement, but above all it provided a symbol for recycling. More than 50 percent of everyday trash could be recycled.
A very simple plastic container, the kind we use for storing food in the fridge, might take over 50 000 years to decompose. So it would be around for a very, very long time.
An aluminum can for beer or sodas takes from 200 to 500 years to decompose. Surely, it is way less, but still could be more useful being recycled.
According to statistics in the USA alone every hour about 2 500 000 plastic bottles are used, and most of these aren't recycled. A huge waste and a powerful impact on the delicate ecological balance.
And an old tin can could that is recycled would mean that you saved enough energy to power your television for around three hours. Think of all the cans you simply threw away in the past.
Recycling a plastic bottle would save enough energy for a 60 watt light bulb to work for about 3 hours.
And a glass bottle that you recycle would save enough energy to power your computer for 20 minutes.
If you still like to read newspapers and magazines the old fashioned way you should know that recycling a pile of about three feet of those equals not cutting down a tree. You need about 24 trees for just one ton of newspaper, and you use far less energy to recycle paper than to make it.
South Korea, China and Japan are some of the largest importers of recycled paper.
Are you curious what happened to your old phone, old computer or TV? About three quarters of these end up in China, where they are taken apart and whatever expensive materials are reused. It is a hard, poorly paid job, but still somebody does it.
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