Every cubic yard of material handled by a recycling or composting program is one less cubic yard of landfill space that is required.
	More than 150 million metric tons of scrap materials are recycled annually, including 81.6 million tons of iron and steel; 50 million tons of paper; 5 million tons of aluminum and 1.8 million tons of copper.
	Today, this country recycles 32.5 percent of its waste, a rate that has almost doubled during the past 15 years.
	In 2007, $21.7 billion worth of scrap commodities was exported to 152 countries, helping U.S. trade balances.
	Twenty years ago, only one curbside recycling program existed in the United States, which collected several materials at the curb. By 2006, about 8,660 curbside programs had sprouted up across the nation. As of 2005, about 500 materials recovery facilities had been established to process the collected materials.
	While recycling has grown in general, recycling of specific materials has grown even more drastically: 52 percent of all paper, 31 percent of all plastic soft drink bottles, 45 percent of all aluminum beer and soft drink cans, 63 percent of all steel packaging, and 67 percent of all major appliances are now recycled.

Recovering and reusing materials results in substantial environmental and societal benefits, including*:

• preventing emissions of air and water pollutants
• reducing greenhouse gas emissions
• saving energy
• supplying valuable materials to industry
• creating jobs
• stimulating the development of greener technologies
• conserving resources for our children’s future