Paper is everywhere we look, especially when we look in the trash. But according to the American Forest and Paper Association in Washington, D.C., paper recyclers are halfway home. And that's an all-time record. About half of all recycled paper is transformed into paperboard - thin cardboard used in cracker and cereal boxes. Some winds up in tissues and toilet paper.
Newspapers often become newsprint again and again.
There's still 55 percent of all used paper floating around, so there is more to be done. Aluminum Bet you can't remember a time when we weren't recycling aluminum cans, but it hasn't been happening forever. Aluminum wasn't something people recycled until the 1960s. For example, in 1998, Americans retrieved and recycled 66.8 billion soda cans. About 43 billion cans still wound up in city dumps.