Taking Out the Trash

Well not so much, but the chapter has recently joined the campuses effort to promote recycling around campus. There will be large white boxes around campus for QU Student to place plastic bottles, paper, cardboard and aluminum cans in. Every Thursday the chapter will have groups of about five go around campus and change the bags and ensure the full bags go to the proper location. The idea was brought to the chapter by alumni Kyle Leonard who was working on the same project last year.

Heres a few stats on recycling:

• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours. (EPA, 2008)

• Americans go through 25 billion plastic bottles every year

• More than 50% of a new aluminum can is made from recycled aluminum.

• The 36 billion aluminum cans landfilled last year had a scrap value of more than $600 million.

• An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!

• Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.

• Each of us uses approximately one 100-foot-tall Douglas fir tree in paper and wood products per year. (EPA, 2008)

• More than 400 paper mills in the United States use at least some recovered materials in their manufacturing processes, and more than 200 of those mills use recovered fiber exclusively. (EPA, 2008)

• Recycling paper instead of making it from new material generates 74 percent less air pollution and uses 50 percent less water. (EPA, 2008)