recycling Q&A
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Ingredients > ecosystem Data > Recycling Q&A
Learn the reasons why using 100% post consumer waste materials is so important to ecosystem and to Earth's future.
Click on one of the questions below to reveal the answer:
Q: What's the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable?
A: Biodegradable is waste that can be broken down by other living organisms while non-biodegradable is waste that cannot be broken down; this waste can sit in land fills for decades generating methane, a powerful green house gas.
Q: What is Post Consumer Waste (PCW) or Post Consumer Recycled Paper?
A: Post Consumer Waste or Post Consumer Recycled Paper is the garbage people routinely discard. Products that have been recycled should have a percentage of recycled PCW and the higher the PCW rate the better.
Q: What would happen if we stopped recycling?
A: If everyone stopped recycling, the cost of garbage disposal would increase as landfills filled up faster and new ones were built to handle the demand of the new garbage [recycle.com]
Q: What is saved when we recycle scrap paper?
A: For every 1 ton of scrap paper we recycle, we save: 17 trees, 4200 kilowatt hours of electricity, 7000 gallons of water, and 3 cubic yards of landfill space. In addition, 60 pounds of effluents are not emitted into the air [Forestecologynetwork.com]
Q: How much of the waste in a dump is actually discarded paper products?
A: About 40% of what goes into our dumps is discarded paper products [treecycle.com]
Q: How much paper do we use a year?
A: The average American uses an astonishing 730 pounds of paper product a year. Unfortunately, a scant 5 percent of our national paper consumption is currently made from recycled pulp [thegreenguide.com]
what's wrong with this picture?
Paper is easy to recycle, yet how much of it ends up in our landfills?