Morris Residents Recycled 32K Tons of Trash in 2012

ReCommunity, Morris County’s recycling partner, announced Monday—Earth Day—the overall impact of local recycling efforts for 2012. 

“Earth Day marks a perfect opportunity for us to showcase our commitment to forward-thinking communities like Morris County,” said James Devlin, ReCommunity CEO, “and to celebrate the community’s recycling efforts which helped create more jobs and a better future.” 

County residents produced 32,227 tons of recyclable materials at the group's Morris facility in 2012. Within all those tons were found the following facts:

What’s contained in 32,227 tons of recyclable material in Morris County?

• 27,200,616 aluminum cans or enough aluminum to build six jumbo jet airliners;
• 138,000,830 plastic bottles or the equivalent of saving 2,511,525 gallons of oil;  
• 3,369,843,830 sheets of paper or the equivalent of 284,168 trees.

What’s the economic impact of recovering 32,227 tons of recyclable materials?

• 64 jobs created

Additional environmental impacts of recovering 32,227 tons of recycled materials:

• 93,526 metric tons of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases prevented, which equates to removing 17,129 cars from the road annually;
• 41,435 cubic yards of landfill space saved, which equates to 2,100 Olympic-sized swimming pools filled with garbage.

“By definition, sustainability is all-encompassing, including environmental, economic and social benefits to Morris County,” said Glenn Schweizer, executive director for Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority, which oversees the county’s recycling program. “Our recycling efforts have enabled us to generate some revenue, create new jobs and reduce our carbon footprint.”

Morris County residents can download a copy of the report for comparisons equating the amount of recycled material to the amount of trees and oil saved, jobs created and more.