Environment & Conservation
Arlington Heights Park District
Recycling Fact Sheet
April 1, 2008

• Administration Center began recycling with Groot Industries August 2007.
• Groot Industries in Elk Grove, Illinois recycles 150 tons of trash each day.
• Frontier, Camelot, Heritage, Olympic and Recreation Community Centers came on line recycling in 2007
• Over 120,000 aluminum cans are recycled every minute in the U.S.
• Pioneer Community center came on line recycling March 2008.
• Glass can be recycled virtually forever.
• Fall 2007 season of football at Sunset Meadows and Pioneer were set up for recycling on both game days and practices during the week.
• In the U.S. the amount of steel that is discarded and not recycled every year is enough to build all the new American-made cars.
• FVFRC & HTC started recycling officially winter of 07/08.
• Paper made from recycled paper uses 70% less energy.
• All AHPD sponsored special events in NSP will have recycling containers in use in May 2008.
• Americans use 4 million plastic bottles every hour, but only 25% of plastic bottles are recycled.
• Pioneer, Sunset Meadows, Melas, NSP and the Administration Center will have special trash containers identifying recyclables to better inform the users of the Park Districts intent of encouraging recycling through out the parks May 2008.
• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours or a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
• An informational announcement will be inserted into the summer 2008 program guide informing residents of the current AHPD recycling program.
• When in doubt recycle.
• All park trash picked up in the parks will be disposed of and recycled at Groot Industries transfer station in Elk Grove March 2008.
• In 1972, 53 million pounds of aluminum cans were recycled. Today we exceed this amount in the U.S. weekly.
• The Parks Department picks up trash 7 days a week for 9 months of the year.
• 75% of each tree that is cut down for paper is not used in a paper product.
• The Arlington Heights Park District disposes of an estimated 800 tons of trash every year.
• 98 tons of various resources are required to make one ton of paper.
• The separation of trash from recyclables can improve the total amount of trash recycled.
• We save 17 trees for each ton of recycled paper.
• Frontier has its recyclables picked up on Thursday mornings.
• One person uses two pine trees worth of paper products every year.
• Camelot has its recyclables picked up on Wednesday mornings.
• Americans go through2.5 million plastic bottles every year.
• Heritage, Recreation, Pioneer and F.V. has its recyclables picked up on Friday mornings.
• Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap Texas.
• Olympic, HTC and Nickol Knoll has its recyclables picked up on Tuesday mornings.
• The average American throws out about 61 lbs. of tin cans every month.
• The Arlington Heights Parks District has over 200 trash cans out in the parks.
• It takes an entire forest—over 500,000 trees to supply Americans with their Sunday newspapers every week.
• All AHPD recycling containers accept a wide variety of single-sort recyclable products.
• In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his/her adult weight in garbage.
• The average U.S. home uses the energy equivalent of 1,253 gallons of oil every year.
• Every winter, the energy equivalent of all the oil that flows through the Alaskan pipeline in a year leaks through American windows.