Recycling Habits

The amount of municipal solid waste (household and commercial waste) that the average person generates varies widely by country. According to the World Resources Institute, some typical waste generation rates are:

The environmental impact of this consumption varies with how much recycling and composting is done in your region. The primary impacts are natural resource use, energy use, and the air emissions associated with energy use. The following questions will give you an idea how your purchasing and disposal methods affect your personal environmental impact.

1. How many aluminum cans (soda, beer, juice, etc) do you purchase each week?
   What percentage of these aluminum cans do you recycle? %
   

2. How many newspapers do you purchase each week?
   What percentage of these newspapers do you recycle? %
   

3. How many plastic milk jugs (1 gallon container) do you purchase each week?
   What percentage of these plastic milk jugs do you recycle? %
   

4. How many glass bottles (16 oz.) do you purchase each week?
   What percentage of these glass bottles do you recycle? %
   

5. What percentage of your food waste do you compost or grind in a garbage disposal? %
   What percentage of your clean mixed paper (note paper, junk mail, cereal boxes, etc.) do you recycle? %
   

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   	Content by Mike Rupiper.
   	HTML and CGI by Sama Bilbao y León

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