The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls recycling one of the best environmental success stories of our era.¹ Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. Why make the extra effort to recycle? Because:

• Recycling just one aluminum beverage can saves enough electricity to run a laptop computer for four hours.²
• U.S. recycling diverted approximately 82 million tons of material away from landfills in 2006.³
• Recycling generates about 1.1 million U.S. jobs, $236 billion in gross annual sales and $37 billion in annual payrolls.⁴
• The recycling symbol is a loop because recycling is an infinite process. The three arrows stand for collecting, reprocessing and buying recyclables.⁵