Recycle one (glass or plastic) drinks bottle
No comments left yet!
Description
Glass is a material that can be recycled over and over again without losing its quality. Recycling it is simple. Plastic bottles can be turned into countless other products including carpet, clothing, upholstery, and other bottles. Plastics are made from oil; and the more we recycle, the less we use of this precious resource.
Tags
- bottles
- glass
- plastic
- recyclables
- recycle
- recyclemania
Assumptions We Made
This calculation includes glass and plastic bottles since recycling them saves the same amount of CO2. We assumed that the glass bottle is 12 fluid ounces and the plastic bottle is 20 fluid ounces. The calculations are based on the EPA’s iWARM model which calculates how much energy is saved when items are recycled instead of placed in a landfill. The energy is expressed in terms of the electricity that could be produced by the fuel saved in the production process. CO2 calculations subsequently are calculated based on a conversion from www.carbonfund.org where 1.297 lbs CO2 are generated when 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity is produced.
The model also assumes that a 100% recycled product replaces a product made of 100% virgin materials. This is typically not the case as the product is usually composed of virgin materials mixed with recycled materials.
For more information, please visit the EPA’s iWARM model page: http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/tools/iwarm/index.htm
Impacts
Initial Impacts
Each time you carry out this action, the immediate impacts are:
- Saves 0.13 lbs of CO2
Ongoing Impacts
Some actions also have additional impact over time. For this action, these are:
- Unknown
Potential Annual Impact
We assume that this action will be carried out daily (about 210 times a year). In this case, in a year you could save:- 27.30 lbs of CO2
| Sign up to commit |