RECYCLABLES
This metal can be recycled infinitely without losing quality.
What is aluminum?
The amount of waste generated daily by the average person.
What is five pounds?
This natural resource is used to make plastic.
What is crude oil?
Recycling one ton of this material saves 16.3 barrels of oil.
What is plastic?
When asked, this is the leading barrier to recycling for many people.
What is convenience? (Or, space & time)
This type of paper is the highest quality and can last the longest in the recycling system.
What is office paper?
This common household waste can be naturally recycled, but generates methane and makes up about 24% of landfill space.
What is food waste?
This is the term for fragments of plastics less than 5mm in length.
What are microplastics?
657 tons of this material was recycled into new products by a local business here in the Mat-Su in 2024.
What is cardboard?
This recycling system, while more convenient, tends to lead to more contamination and more material being sent to the landfill.
What is single-steam recycling?
These recyclable resources are created in the heart of stars, and therefore are non-renewable.
What are metals? (Aluminum and steel)
This kind of waste, including batteries, electronics, and paint, requires special disposal to mitigate environmental risks.
What is household hazardous waste?
Most plastic items are marked with a number inside this symbol to help identify the type of plastic used.
What are resin codes?
Recycling and composting of municipal waste in 2018 prevented the generation of over 186 million metric tons of this emission.
What is carbon dioxide?
70-75% of this material ends up in landfills, despite being 100% recyclable, often due to contamination and weight.
What is glass?
This type of plastic, often found in bottles, has a recycling rate of 30% in the U.S.
What is polyethylene terephthalate? (#1, PETE)
Now considered a bad habit and a leading contributor to environmental pollution, this was once the accepted way to manage waste in some ancient civilizations.
What is littering?
This percentage of plastic packaging is recycled globally.
What is 9%?
Recycling activity in the U.S. annually accounts for over 750,000 of these.
What are jobs?
This seasonal factor increases the contamination seen in recycling.
What are the holidays?
Despite being 100% recyclable, about 66% of this material ends up in landfills.
What is paper?
Similar to planned obsolescence, this term refers to a use-and-toss type of product designing, which contributes significantly to solid waste.
What is single-use/disposable design?
Before the invention of plastic in 1862, people commonly used natural materials such as wood, metal, ceramic, glass, and this flexible material.
What is natural rubber?
Reducing waste impacts this local public recreation, which will be converted into new landfill cells when the existing cells are full.
What is a hiking trail?
This form of plastic packaging is low-quality and can be made of mixed plastics. As a result, there is almost no market demand for it, making it rarely collected for recycling.
What are clamshells?