Interesting facts and useful tips

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Paper

There are three steps to reducing paper usage:

Don’t print unnecessarily
Reuse
Recycle

1 ton of recycled paper saves:

About 13 trees;
2.5 barrels of oil;
4,100 kWh electric power;
4 m3 of landfill space;
31,780 l of water.

Here are a few ideas about how to reduce paper usage:

Use scrap paper to make a notepad;
Shredded paper makes great bedding for pets or for wrapping fragile items;
Use your boxes for gift packaging;
Cereal boxes cut on an angle make great newspaper and magazine holders.

Plastic

In landfills, plastic takes 400 years to decompose.

56% of recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) finds a market among carpet and clothes manufacturers.
29% of recycled HDPE (high density polyethylene) bottles are used to make new bottles.
It takes 5 PET bottles to make 1 sq m of polyester carpet, 1 XXL sized T-shirt, or the filling of one ski jacket.
Polyester fibers from 2 plastic bottles are enough to make one baseball cap.
Recycling 1 plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes.

Glass

How to reduce glass usage and waste?

Choose the most appropriate size of container. This will reduce the amount of glass packaging you use. For example, a one-liter glass bottle of tomato juice uses less glass than two 500-ml bottles.
When you have the choice between a bottled drink or from tap, choose the latter in a reusable glass.

You can store:

Food products and drinks; use for small items - screws, beads, buttons;
Make home decorations – a vase, pencil holder, a candle holder or lantern;

Glass can be recycled over and over again, practically endlessly, with no loss in quality.

1 ton of glass cullet saves 1.1 t of raw materials.
1 recycled glass bottle saves enough electricity to run a 100 watt light bulb for 4 hours.
1 recycled glass bottle saves enough electricity to run your V for 1.5 hours.

How glass is recycled?

The separately collected glass waste (bottles and jars only) is sorted by color (colorless, brown and green glass are typically the types that are recycled) and then broken down into cullet. The cullet is mixed with raw materials (sand, soda ash and limestone) and melted in a furnace. The molten glass is poured into molds to make new jars and bottles.

Metal

1 ton of recycled steel saves:

1.5 t of iron ore
0.5 t of coal
40% of the water necessary to make new steel

Steel is the most recycled material in the world!

It can be recycled over and over again without any loss in quality of the finished product.
When making new steel from recycled cans, 75% less energy is used than in production from raw materials.
Steel cans can be recycled into railway tracks and car parts, as well as new cans.

How aluminum is recycled?

The collected aluminum is separated from other scrap metal, compressed and baled in the form of blocks which are taken to a foundry. The molten aluminum is poured into a mold to form new blocks. The ready aluminum blocks are used to make new aluminum products.

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