Started on April 22, 1970, Earth Day celebrates the planet Earth and the plants and animals that inhabit, it while reminding us to appreciate it and learn ways to protect our planet. 

Below are some recycling facts to help motivate all of us to do our part to protect the planet.

• One drip per second from a faucet wastes 540 gallons of water a year.
• A full bath tub uses 70 gallons of water, while a 5 minute shower only uses 10-25 gallons.
• A toilet made in 1992 or earlier uses up to 60 percent more water per flush than a newer high efficiency toilet.
• It takes between 400 to 500 years for a Styrofoam cup to decompose.  It takes and orange peel 6 months to decompose.
• Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, & 4,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.  This is enough energy to power the average American home for 5 months.
• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 100 watt light bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, and a TV for 2 hours.
• Americans throw away enough aluminum every month to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.
• Enough plastic is produced in the US each year to shrink wrap Texas.
• Enough plastic bottles are thrown away in the US each year to circle the Earth 4 times.
• Americans recycle only 5 percent of all the plastics produced in the US.
• Every year in the US nearly 200 billion beverage containers are sold, two-thirds of which are landfilled, incinerated or littered.
• Half of the world’s tropical & temperate forest are now gone.
• Using recycled glass uses 40 percent less energy than making products from all new materials.
• Recycling steel & tin cans saves 74 percent of the energy used to make them.
• The process of recycling paper instead of making it from new materials generates 74 percent less air pollution & uses 50 percent less water.
• Recycling, reuse and remanufacturing account for 3.1 million jobs in the US.