Metal Recycling Facts:

* Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy needed to produce new aluminum from raw materials. Energy saved from recycling one ton of aluminum is equal to the amount of electricity the average home uses over 10 years.

* Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

* Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch. That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one can out of new material. Energy savings in 1993 alone were enough to light a city the size of Pittsburgh for six years.

* Americans throw away enough aluminum every month to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.

* Recycling steel and tin cans saves 74% of the energy used to produce them.

* Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

* Americans throw out enough iron and steel to supply all the nation’s automakers on a continuous basis.

* A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution and mining wastes by about 70%.

* When you toss out one aluminum can you waste as much energy as if you’d filled the same can half-full of gasoline and poured it into the ground.