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Help Dr. Recycle Keep MUSC's Recycling Program
Healthy
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Office of Recycling and Solid Waste Management
 Recycling
is just one way to handle Americas solid waste. In a lifetime,
the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage. If you
add it up, this means that a 150-lb. adult will leave a legacy of 90,000 lbs. of trash for
his or her children.
Traditionally, we bury most of our garbage in landfills. But landfills are
filling up and closing down all over the country. Between 1978 and 1988, 70% or 14,000 of
America's 20,000 landfills closed.
In Charleston County our garbage is burned at the local incinerator.
According to Environmental Action, "Even with pollution controls, incinerators are the
largest new source of air pollution in most communities. They spew out gases that
contribute to acid rain, toxic heavy metals, and dioxins. And incinerators produce
millions of tons of toxic ash, which still has to go to landfills."
Our resources are finite. If we don't recycle, we'll use them up. Oil for
example can be re-refined and used again instead of using virgin oil. We can save
energy by recycling. Every year we save enough energy recycling steel to supply L.A. with nearly a decade's worth of electricity.
Making one ton of recycled paper uses only about 60% of the energy needed to make a ton of
virgin paper. We save enough energy by recycling one aluminum can to run a TV for
three hours. Recycling glass lowers the melting point for the new glass, saving up
to 32% of the energy needed for production. America imports about 50% of its'
oil. Saving energy by recycling means we depend less on foreign supplies.
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