Eco-Smarts

Think you know a lot about recycling already? Impress your friends and family with these Fun Facts and help spread the word about being "green."

•Aluminum comes from the natural resource bauxite. The U.S. has mined all of its known sources of bauxite.

•Every recycled aluminum can saves 6 ounces of oil.

•The first recorded use of packaging dates back to 1551 to a German papermaker who began placing his paper in a wrapper with his maker’s mark.

•In the year 1795, Georgetown, Virginia passed the first known U.S. garbage ordinance by prohibiting the dumping of garbage and waste in the streets.

•Items comprised of PETE, such as plastic bottles, are actually a form of polyester. It can be reused to make carpet, polyester suits, or fiberfill to stuff a ski jacket.

•In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a book warning about the dangers of chemicals in the environment. The book’s release marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement.

•In 1967, the Ohio General Assembly enacted the state’s first solid waste law. It restricted open dumping and open burning of waste materials.

•According to Webster’s Dictionary, Decomposition means: to break up or separate into basic components or parts; to rot. For materials to decompose, they need four elements: air, water, heat and microbes. It’s hard for materials to be exposed to all four of these things in a landfill, therefore, you can’t count on trash to decompose. It’s better to recycle and save it from the landfill in the first place.

•If the Pilgrims had 6-packs, we would still have the plastic rings from them today.

•In the paper-making process, boiled wood chips, water, and chemicals are blended and then boiled to separate wood fibers from the lignin, or the "glue" that holds the wood together. After separating the fibers, they are beat into a mix that looks like oatmeal. Then it is bleached with chlorine (brown paper like cardboard skips this step). bleaching paper with high levels of chlorine can produce dioxins, a very toxic pollutant. Some paper mills are "greening" up by developing bleaching alternatives.

•Paper can be recycled up to seven times, depending on the length of the fibers.