Billions of Dollars in Recyclables Wasted Every Year

In 2010 over four million tons of recyclable cardboard, estimated at a value of over one billion dollars, was disposed of in landfills.

This information comes from the non-profit group As You Sow that advocates for corporate social responsibility and environmentalism.

The group also reports that PET materials with a value of almost three billion were sent to landfills in the same year. While close to half of all aluminum cans are recycled, at a value of one an a half billion, the total number of PET recycling is closer to 25%.

HDPE materials such as laundry detergent bottle and milk jugs was ranked second, after cardboard, as the most valuable discarded recyclable, worth almost three billion dollars.

As You Sow encourages companies to increase their responsibility for the recyclable material that they generate during the manufacturing process, and also suggests that municipalities improve their waste and recycling collection methods to obtain larger amounts of these valuable goods.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Are you leaving money on the table by not recycling and reselling items that you are currently paying to dispose of as garbage? Take a look at your waste stream and see if your trash can be someone else’s treasure!