The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, estimates that roughly 80 percent of what Americans toss into the trash is recyclable but, as a nation, the recycling rate is only 28 percent. However, the EPA asserts that recycling programs produce multiple benefits on both a local and global scale. Aside from preserving natural resources, recycling programs create jobs. In fact, the University of Colorado Recycling Services says that recycling 1 ton of paper creates five times more jobs than the number of manufacturing jobs needed to produce the same amount of paper from raw materials. Recycling also decreases the need to reserve land for landfills and reduces carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to the effects of global warming
