Each year, the people of the United States uses no less than eighty-six million tons of paper, of which this country recycles only about nineteen million tons of this waste paper. If we were to recycle all of the remaining paper, we could recycle up to forty-six million tons. Recycling those forty-six million tons could save at least seven hundred eighty six million trees, or at least several forests worth. This would save the habitats of many endangered species.
Every single day, Americans buy around sixty three million newspapers and throw out well over forty five million of them. If this country recycled just half our newsprint every year, we would cut the use of three thousand two hundred garbage trucks and tons of garbage that they needlessly haul to our landfills every week. Just one single average American person uses four hundred sixty five trees to create a lifetime of paper, the majority of which they throw away. Americans thoughtlessly, and carelessly, throw away the equivalent of more than thirty million trees just in newspapers every single year! Imagine how many forests and natural habitats could be saved if people recycled their newspapers!
Better yet, if the laws governing the hemp plant were done away with we could have a much better quality paper that comes from a yearly renewable resource! There would be no need to ever cut down another tree to make paper with; Nor would there be any need to use the harsh and toxic chemicals that is required to break down wood fiber in order to make paper. The pollutants that come as a result of making paper from tree pulp would no longer be an issue and the cost of trying to clean up the mess made of the rivers and streams from these toxic chemicals would become a thing of the past.
Every single year Americans toss out four million tons of office paper. That’s enough to build a twelve foot high and three foot thick wall of paper from New York to California! If Americans would just recycle every phone book they get each year, no less than six hundred fifty thousand to seven hundred thousand tons of paper could be saved.
Recycling just half the world’s waste paper would save twenty to twenty five million acres of forestland. That’s a lot of oxygen, which also means a lot of clean air! Recycling just one stack of newspapers that stands around six feet tall will save the life of one oxygen producing, air cleaning tree, thirty five feet tall.
Studies done by the EPA has shown that making paper from recycled materials will result in 75% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution. This simply means that for every ton of paper that gets recycled, that simple action keeps over sixty pounds of pollution out of Earth’s atmosphere! That’s how much pollution that would have been produced if the paper had been manufactured fresh from virgin tree pulp.
Making a ton of virgin paper requires around three thousand seven hundred pounds of wood, over twenty four thousand gallons of water, around two hundred twenty pounds of lime, nearly four hundred pounds of salt cake and almost eighty pounds of soda ash. Then we have to treat and dispose of nearly ninety pounds of air pollutants, forty pounds of water pollutants and one hundred eighty pounds of solid waste.