Without bats, there would be no tequila. Three hundred and fourteen acres of trees are used to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of the New York Times. The Fresh Kills Landfill site on Staten Island, New York, opened in 1948, is the world's largest. It covers 3,000 acres and receives up to 14,000 tons of garbage a day. It is scheduled to reach capacity, and may close, by the year 2002.
Recycled glass uses only two-thirds the energy needed to manufacture glass from scratch.
That means for every soft drink bottle that is recycled, enough energy is saved to run a television set for an hour and a half. The junk mail that Americans receive in one day could produce enough energy to heat 250,000 homes. Thirty gallons, or 135 litres, of water is used for the average shower in the United States. There are nearly 63,000 trees in the 314 acres. To save a 40-foot tree, a stack of newspapers averaging 4 feet in thickness must be recycled.