Recycling is one of those behaviors that is so easy that it can seem inconsequential; what’s the difference if you put that one bottle in the trash can instead of the recycle bin, right? Though it might not seem to matter that much, recycling is one of those things whose impact can really be felt and measured by the many collective actions of lots of people. If you don’t think whether or not you recycle really makes much difference, think about these numbers the next time you toss something that belongs in the blue bin.

544,000 — trees saved if every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100% recycled ones.
20 million — tons of electronic waste thrown away each year. One ton of scrap from discarded computers contains more gold than can be produced from 17 tons of gold ore.
9 cubic yards — amount of landfill space saved by recycling one ton of cardboard.
$160 billion — the value of the global recycling industry that employs over 1.5 million people.
79 million tons — the amount of waste material diverted away from disposal in 2005 through recycling and composting, according to the EPA [www.epa.gov]
5% — the fraction of the energy it takes to recycle aluminum versus mining and refining new aluminum, according to Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].
315 kg — or 694 pounds, which is the amount of carbon dioxide not released into the atmosphere each time a metric ton of glass is used to create new glass products, according to Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].
98%: the percentage of glass bottles in Denmark that are refillable. 98% of those are returned by consumers for reuse, also according to Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].
51.5%: the percentage of the paper consumed in the U.S. that was recovered for recycling in 2005 (thanks again, Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].