Our message is simple: Helping others and the environment.
The idea of Recycling for Charities evolved
out of a desire to help the world community
through small, project-by-project fundraisers
based on the redemption of refundable
containers, cell phones, pc and related
electronics, while mitigating the effects of
un-recycled products may have on the
environment through
promoting recycling education, and bridging
recycling needs to unmet areas.
By promoting recycling
for charities programs in business and
residential communities,
and extending the life and reuse of
computers, toners, cell phones, Recycling for Charities
hope to raise enough funds to make a difference in other charities.
Furthermore, Recycling For Charities brings more
attention to the charities we assist by publishing them
on our websites, while highlighting the connections that
exist in our world community.
American consumers purchase over 500 million
beverage bottles and cans, on average, every
day. Only about one in three are recycled
while two out of three beverage containers
sold are landfilled, incinerated or littered.
Of the 243 billion beverage packages sold in the
U.S. in 2010—glass bottles, plastic bottles and
aluminum cans as well as foil pouches, gable-top
cartons and other non-traditional containers—153
billion were either land filled, littered or incinerated.
According to the Container Recycling Institute
(CRI), beverage sales have increased over
five-fold in the last 30 years while U.S.
container recycling rates have declined from
53.5% in 1992 to 33.5% in 2004.
CRI,2005.
“Recycling rates have stagnated in large part due
to a dramatic increase in consumption of these
beverages, especially at businesses and in public
spaces where recycling bins are scarce,” said
Susan V. Collins, president of the Container
Recycling Institute.
Only 10 percent of the 140.3 million cell
phones retired in 2007 were recycled. EPA
Of the 2.25 million tons of electronics (TVs, cell phones, computers, etc)
retired in 2007, 82 percent were discarded, mostly to landfills.
According to the National Recycling Institute,
500 million computers became obsolete in 2007.
NRI, 2007
Plastic bags don't biodegrade; they're expensive and hard to remove.
4.7 million tons of plastic trash reaches the sea each annually.
Less than 1% of plastic bags are recycled each year. Recycling 1 ton of plastic bags
costs $4,000; the recycled product is only worth $32.
(Plastic Bags: and the Legislation to Curb their Usage, Alexandra Wells, July, 2011)
The "Eastern Garbage Patch" in the Pacific is
made up of at least 80% plastic! And it's about
the size of Texas.
Recycling saves 95 percent of the energy required to make
aluminum from ore.
In 1996,
aluminum companies saved the equivalent of over
18.4 million barrels of oil or 10.8 billion
kilowatt hours. This represents enough energy
to supply the electrical needs of a city the size
of Pittsburgh for about six years.
It takes about six hundred pounds of fossil fuels
and chemicals to create the chips for one personal
computer. Seventy pounds of water are used to rinse out
impurities in a single chip. The amount of waste
generated to produce one laptop is close to 4,000 times
its weight.
Copyright 2001 Recycling for Charities. All rights reserved. Revised: 03/15/2018