Waste reduction fast facts: Aluminum
Garbage and recycling › Resources for schools › Fast facts about waste reduction › Aluminum
This resource is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but can be cited and dated from primary and secondary sources. To find out more about the methodology or accuracy, contact the referenced source.
Metro does not validate nor endorse any of these facts.
-
The following resources are used to produce one ton of
aluminum: 8,766 pounds of bauxite, 1,020 pounds of petroleum coke, 966
pounds of soda ash, 327 pounds of pitch, 238 pounds of lime and 197
million BTU of energy. –Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, “Rethinking Recycling: An Oregon Waste Reduction Curriculum,” 2001
www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwaste/rethinkrecyc/rethinkrecyc.html -
The pollutants created in producing one ton of aluminum are
3,290 pounds of red mud, 2,900 pounds of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse
gas), 81 pounds of air pollutants, and 789 pounds of solid wastes. –Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, “Rethinking Recycling: An Oregon Waste Reduction Curriculum,” 2001
www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwaste/rethinkrecyc/rethinkrecyc.html -
The average aluminum can contains 40 percent post-consumer recycled aluminum. –Environmental Protection Agency, Last updated, May 2005
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/alum.htm - In 2001, Americans bought 351 aluminum beverage cans per person (twice as many as in 1980) and wasted 70 more cans per person than in 1980. –Container Recycling Institute, Jennifer Gitlitz, “Trashed Cans: The Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can Wasting in America,” 2002
- In 2004, 55 billion aluminum cans were landfilled, littered or incinerated, 9 billion more than were wasted in 2000. This is enough cans to fill the Empire State Building twenty times. It is also a quantity equivalent to the annual production of three to four major primary aluminum smelters. –Container Recycling Institute, “Stemming the Tide of Trashed Aluminum Cans: Industry Efforts Fall Flat,” May 23, 2005
-
The recycling rate for aluminum beverage containers in the
U.S. was 45.1 percent in 2004, up less than a full percentage point
from 44.3 percent in 2003. –Container Recycling Institute, 2005
http://www.container-recycling.org/ -
Container recycling rates in deposit states average 75
percent to 80 percent: two to three times higher than in non-deposit
states. –Container Recycling Institute, Jenny Gitlitz and Pat Franklin, “The 10 cent Incentive to Recycling,” 3rd Edition, February 2004
http://www.container-recycling.org/alumrate/UBCRateRelease2005.htm -
Recycling an aluminum can saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from virgin materials. –Environmental Protection Agency, Last updated May 17, 2005
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/alum.htm - The energy required to replace the aluminum cans wasted in 2001 was equivalent to 16 million barrels of crude oil, enough to meet the electricity needs of all homes in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, San Francisco and Seattle. –Container Recycling Institute, Jennifer Gitlitz, “Trashed Cans: The Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can Wasting in America,” 2002
-
Recycling one ton of aluminum is equivalent to not releasing 13 tons of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) into the air. –Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, “Rethinking Recycling: An Oregon Waste Reduction Curriculum,” 2001
www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwaste/rethinkrecyc/rethinkrecyc.html