Why should we recycle? US recycles 52% of aluminum cans.If your not recycling stop complaining about energy prices in the midst of the energy crisis. If we recycled 75% of the aluminum cans being currently tossed into landfills, we could save 1286 megawatts of generated electricity. That is the amount produced by two coal fired power plants, and consumed by two aluminum plants. By recycling we could offset 11.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being generated and released into the atmosphere.

Recycling is very efficient as recycling a ton of aluminum uses a mere 5% of the energy required to make virgin metal. Every ton of recycled aluminum saves about 14,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. According to the US Energy Information Administration the average American household consumes 920 kilowatts of electricity per month. This means that using 1 ton of recycled aluminum instead of 1 ton of virgin aluminum would make enough conserved energy available to power an American household for over 15 months. So stop complaining about energy prices and start recycling. More towns and cities need to offer curbside recycling programs like the one Cache County implemented.

How much are other countries recycling?

Brazil 94.4%
Japan 90.9 %
Germany 89 %
Global Average 63%
Western Europe 57.7%