DID YOU KNOW THAT ...
1. The average person generates about 2 kilos of rubbish every day and produces about 1.5 tonnes of solid waste per year in the US.
2. In 2009, Americans produced enough trash to circle the Earth 24 times.
3. Over 75% of waste is recyclable, but Americans only recycle about 30% of it.
4. Americans are responsible for 21.5 million tons of food waste each year. If we composted that wasted food, it would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road.
5. Recycling one aluminium can saves enough energy to listen to a full album on your iPod. Recycling 100 cans will light your bedroom for two whole weeks.
6. Recycling aluminum cans saves 95% of the energy used to make cans from new material.
7. Americans discard 25,000,000 plastic bottles every hour.
8. Over 87% of Americans have recycling programmes near their homes or workplaces.
9. In 2009, Americans threw away almost 9 million tons of glass. That means it filled enough container trucks to stretch from New York to Los Angeles and back.
10.Since 1990 paper recycling has increased by 89% in the US.
11. If every American recycles just one-tenth of their newspapers, we will save about 25 million trees each year and reduce deforestation.
12. Every year, Americans throw away enough writing and office paper to build a wall
that is four metres high from New York to Los Angeles.
Exercise : According to the passage, are the following statements are true or false? Write ‘T’ for true and ‘F’ for false
1. 25 million bottles are thrown away per day in the US.
2. Recycling aluminium is an good way of saving electricity
3. Leftover food can be used to make soil.
4. By recycling newspapers, fewer trees will be cut down.
5. It is not easy for most Americans to recycle because many of them do not live or work near recycling bins.