AmericaRecycles

Please keep these recyclable items in the recycling bin and out of the environment.

Click to download/print a copy.
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Download, memorize, share.
Our trash doesn't just disappear, but can impact others.
BE AWARE 
IF YOU CARE.
Our resource section contains information that will connect you to some of the best websites on the internet.
Click here to go there.

Be crafty and green.

Lose weight. 
Increase energy.
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For people and animals.

AmericaRecycles
Here are two leaders in the recycling industry.  One that takes used plastic, cleans and processes it so that plastic can be turned into new products.  The other is President of a company that uses that plastic to create the first 100% rPET (recycled plastic) water bottle.

Aly the Albatross is worried about the thousands of his fellow family and friends that are dying from eating plastic they think is food.  Plastic is becoming a "new food group" for these birds.  The mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean is bigger than the US doubled and growing quickly since the population is growing faster than ever in history. We're making all kinds of trash that's ending up in our oceans, turns into tiny particles, gets in fish, and then we're eating it.
Just look at the water and you understand why birds and mammals are found dead with bellies full of plastic after mistaking it for food.  They die a slow painful death of starvation and dehydration. Fish are ingesting plastic toxins at such a rate that soon they will no longer be safe to eat.
There are over 4,500 products made from recycled materials.  If we increase recycling from 35% to 75%
 we create over 1.5 million new jobs.
How can anything thrive in an environment full of garbage.
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Photo by Chris Jordan
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)
Soft Drink Bottles, Food Storage Containers, Cups
High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)
Milk Bottles, Toiletry Bottles, Trash Bags
Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
Piping, Plumbing, Juice, Beverage, Food Products, Laundry and Dish Soap, Cleaners
Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE)
Film, Frozen Food Bags, Stretch Wrap, Condiment, and Toiletry Products
Polypropylene (PP)
Microwaveable Containers, Disposable Cups, Plates, Straws, Condiments.
Polystyrene (PS)
Egg Cartons, Office, CD & DVD Cases,  Home Improvement, Office, Construction Products, Disposable Containers
Other/Composite (O)
Milk Cartons, Electronic Casings, Containers
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Sad the island where these young albatross try and start their life is full of plastic instead of real food and could be one of the thousands that die from eating it every year.
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Click graphic for larger version.
Other bird species also try and survive on a island of plastic with many dying.
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Click for larger version.
Teach yourself and your children how to recycle using this phone app.
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Download, print/email/post, and share.
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Download, print/email/post, and share.

Find out what happens when plastic items get in our waterways and harm. 

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Educate. Click here and download/print this page on plastic and share with others.
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In the interviews below we hear from two of the worlds top experts on how plastic pollution is killing our oceans, Captain Charles Moore, who discovered the Pacific Garbage Patch 20 years ago and hasn't stopped traveling the world and learning more about the problem and what is needed to stop it, and Captain Hayden Smith from New Zealand Sea Cleaners who has worked for years with volunteers to remove tons of trash and plastic from the ocean and is now putting together a global even called OCEAN AID to be held in Honolulu Hawaii in October 2016.

Each interview is almost an hour but full of the most important information we could ask for to understand what is happening and what action is needed to stop the killing and restore our oceans before it is too late.  We've tried to create a class from the best teachers we could ask for and train those that really care, want to be a part of the solution, and can act as teachers to help train more people with the best information to at least not add to the problem and hopefully become involved in either the OCEAN AID event or a Coastal Clean Up Day.


The date for OCEAN AID was changed from September 2016 to October 2016.

By recycling these products you keep mercury and plastic out of our fish.  
Go here to read more.
CAUSES BIRTH DEFECTS!
Click for Mercury Fact Sheet PDF.
Mercury gets in our fish because coal power plants pollute our waterways.
The bigger the fish grows, more mercury will become concentrated in their body.
We're polluting all waterways and our oceans, will all have this sign someday?
Read our blog!

Learn More About Sustainable Fishing and Which Fish You Should Eat 

Choices on which fish we buy and eat times all the billions of people in world changes our planet and will determine if we will have fish to eat in the future or if it will go extinct.  Click and learn more

Plastic Ain’t so Fantastic

It is now believed that there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean. Of that mass, 269,000 tons float on the surface, while some four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer litter the deep sea. Shoppers worldwide are using approximately 500 billion single-use plastic bags per year.

This translates to about a million bags every minute across the globe, or 150 bags a year for every person on earth.  And the number is rising.
  • If you joined them end on end they would circumnavigate the globe 4,200 times.
  • 100,000 marine creatures a year die from plastic entanglement and these are the ones found.
  • Approximately 1 million sea birds also die from plastic.
  • A plastic bag can kill numerous animals because they take so long to disintegrate. An animal that dies from the bag will decompose and the bag will be released, another animal could harmlessly fall victim and once again eat the same bag.
  • The floods in Bangladesh in 1988 & 1998 were made more severe because plastic bags clogged drains. The government has now banned plastic bags.
  • In Ireland they introduced a 15c plastic bag tax and reduced their usage by 90% in one year. It is now 22 cents.
  • The #1 man made thing that sailors see in our ocean are plastic bags.
  • There are believed to be 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean.
  • There are 5 ocean gyres in the world where plastic gathers due to current circulation. These gyres contain millions of pieces of plastic and our wildlife feed in these grounds.
  • It can take anything between 20-1000 years for a plastic bag to break up. I mean break up as they break up into smaller pieces. They don’t break down and those that do, break down into polymers and toxic chemicals.
  • It costs US$4,000 to recycle 1 tonne of plastic bags and you get a product that can be sold on the commodities market for US$32. We must stop them because recycling is not viable.
  • It takes just 4 family shopping trips to accumulate 60 shopping bags.
  • World wide, 13,000-15,000 pieces of plastic are dumped into the ocean every day.
  • Every year, 6.4 million tonnes are dumped into the ocean. This is the same as 3,200 kilometres of trucks each loaded with garbage.
  • At least two thirds of the world’s fish stocks are suffering from plastic ingestion.
  • Ocean acidification is a growing problem
  • Scientists have identified 200 areas declared as ‘dead zones’ where no life organisms can now grow.
In Australia
  • Australia alone uses 6.9 billion plastic bags a year of which 3.6 billion are plastic shopping bags.
  • If you tied 6.9 billion plastic bags together end on end they would travel around the world 42.5 times.
  • Australians dump 36,700 tonnes of plastic bags into our landfill every year. That equates to 4,000 bags a minute or 230,000 per hour
  • Only 10% of Australians take their plastic bags for recycling
  • It costs the Australian government in excess of $4 million to clean up plastic bag litter each year.
  • If each Australian family used 1 less plastic bag each week that would be 253 million bags less a year.
  • Less than 1% of plastic bags in Australia are reused.
  • If you imagine a piece of plastic 1m wide. As a conservative guestimate, a length of this plastic 40km long is produced each day and this is for one brand of toilet paper packaging. For bread you can triple the length (120km long)

Go to Ocean Crusaders