Business Insider explains 'Why The US Loses $800M A Year In Unrecycled Aluminum Cans' for America Recycles Day

Happy America Recycles Day! In my quest to convince America to recycle smarter as well as recycle more, I'm taking a break from the difficulties of recycling plastic and plastic pollution and 'How to Save the World from Plastic' to feature Business Insider explaining Why The US Loses $800M A Year In Unrecycled Aluminum Cans.

Aluminum is infinitely recyclable, but Americans throw out millions of tons of it every year — mainly aluminum cans and other post-consumer scrap. At the same time, US can-recycling rates are falling drastically behind several countries. We went to New York City to meet a career can recycler and to Michigan to visit companies revolutionizing post-consumer aluminum recycling.

The recycling lab I run focuses on recycling aluminum, but I've never posted about it here before. My predecessor wrote it up, which is why I haven't posted the worksheet for it here; I only post the worksheets I wrote. This is also why I've decided not to post the worksheet for Selva Verde: The Green Jungle; I didn't write that one, either.

Just the same, I can use this video, or at least the facts from it, in that lab. What's disturbing is that the U.S. recycling rate has declined since my predecessor wrote it 22 or so years ago. Then, it was 50%. It's now 45%. That means that one of the facts in the worksheet description, that the U.S. throws away enough aluminum to build its entire commercial airplane fleet ever three months, is almost certainly still true, too.

Learning that New York has had a five cent deposit on many aluminum cans since 1983 makes the episode that inspired Life imitates 'Seinfeld' in Michigan recycling scam even more ridiculous. I doubt the five cent per can and bottle difference between New York and Michigan would be enough to recoup the transportation costs, even 30 years ago. Still, seeing that Michigan has an 89% can and bottle return rate is encouraging. I didn't know either of those facts before watching this video, which means I learned two things new today. As I'm fond of writing, it's always a good day when I learn something new, which makes today a good day.

That completes the string of three holidays that began with World Kindness Day and National Gratitude Month and continued with SciShow asks 'Could a Vaccine Prevent Type 1 Diabetes?' for World Diabetes Day. Since this blog passed its page view goal for the month today, stay tuned for evergreen and holiday posts through the rest of November.