Austin Wins Recycling Award

Municipal Waste Management Association reports the national aluminum recycling rate is currently at 51.2%, another $1 billion in recyclable cans end up in landfills annually.

A few additional factoids from MWMA for those needing some small talk fodder:

The average American drinks 370 beverages in aluminum cans each year; it only takes 60 days to turn the empty cans in your recycling bin into new cans on retailers’ shelves; recycling 40 cans saves the equivalent of one gallon in gasoline; the energy saved by recycling one ton of aluminum could fuel a car that gets 35 mpg for 82,250 miles.

Austin, Texas won the City Recycling Challenge for recycling 2.7 million aluminum cans (80,000 pounds) in 2007.

Tags: recycling, aluminum cans, Austin wins