- A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days. That’s closed loop recycling at its finest!
- Used aluminum beverage cans are the most recycled item in the U.S., but other types of aluminum, such as siding, gutters, car components, storm window frames, and lawn furniture can also be recycled.
- Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours — or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.
- More aluminum goes into beverage cans than any other product.
- Because so many of them are recycled, aluminum cans account for less than 1% of the total U.S. waste stream, according to EPA estimates.
- An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!
- There is no limit to the amount of times an aluminum can be recycled.
- We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans every year.
- At one time, aluminum was more valuable than gold!
- A 60-watt light bulb can be run for over a day on the amount of energy saved by recycling 1 pound of steel. In one year in the United States, the recycling of steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes! (more…)
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Aluminum Recycling Facts
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011Guerrilla Gardening
Monday, August 8th, 2011You may not even know it, but there could be an underground army in your neighborhood — people operating under a cloak of anonymity, working slightly outside the law, all for one simple cause: Beautifying their community.
It’s called guerrilla gardening — the practice of taking a tiny bit of control over the local environment by planting seeds in an untended place. Here’s how it works:
- The guerrilla gardener identifies an unused lot or vacant property that’s neglected and would look so much better with some flowers, grass, or other non-invasive, native plant life.
- Whenever they walk past the abandoned area, they’ll drop some seeds around, or throw seed balls, which are seeds and soil wrapped in a biodegradable capsule.
- After a few weeks and a good rain, plants should start growing, and that vacant lot will be a lot more pleasant to look at. (more…)
Heat-Driven Air-Conditioning
Friday, August 5th, 2011This shiny tangle of pipes and ducts at a facility of the power company Industrielle Werke Basel in Basel, Switzerland, is an air-conditioning system that is actually driven by heat. Likewise, heat actually helps to cool banks, hotels, and offices in the Adelgade district of Copenhagen, a T-Mobile data center in Munich and Fumincino Airport in Rome.
The company that engineered all of these systems, Thermax of Pune, India, markets them as one of its “sustainable solutions” for today’s environmental concerns, but the technology—absorption chilling—has been in commercial use since the 1920s. Like standard air conditioners, absorption chillers rely on a refrigerant with a low boiling point. When the refrigerant evaporates, it removes heat from the air. Standard air conditioners then change the refrigerant gas back to liquid using an electric compressor. But absorption chillers rely on thermal compression to restart the cycle; they need only heat—no moving parts—to drive the operation (more…)
