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Municipal Recycling Information

Wayne County Residential Recycling Rates

Wayne County's Solid Waste Ordinance, No. 2004-787, section 250.3, requires each Wayne County municipality to submit an annual waste stream report detailing a variety of solid waste information including the amount of residential waste recycled and composted for the previous year.

Information for each community, as calculated using waste generation data provided on the waste stream reports, as well as overall residential recycling and composting rates for Wayne County can be accessed at the link below:

2015 Municipality Recycling Report

Recycling Facts

Like many other Americans, you collect and sort items that can be recycled. That's good, because you help your community reduce the amount of garbage going to the landfill. But putting items out for collection or dropping them off at a local center is only the first of three steps in the recycling process. It may surprise you to learn that what you BUY is just as important as saving the things your recycling center takes.

To market, to market...
Today, approximately 30% of our trash in the United States is recovered annually for recycling. Where do these millions of pounds of recyclables go after collection? Manufacturers use them to make new products—recyclings' second step. The third and final step returns the new products to the marketplace. This step is one that YOU need to support if recycling is to remain part of the solution to the country's garbage issue.

Why Should I Buy Recycled?
You "close the loop" when you buy items or packaging made from recycled materials. They have now come full-circle: from bag or bin to a manufacturer, to the store shelf, and back to your home. And after using the item, you can start the loop again by saving it for the local recycling program. When you buy recycled, markets are created and a use is assured for recyclables being collected in your community and in thousands of others. Manufacturers will respond by continuing to use recyclables in their products.

Without informed consumers and a ready market for products made of recycled materials, local recycling programs will become more costly and fewer recyclables may be collected and processed. More reusable material will end up in landfills, and communities will need to deal with an increased amount of garbage.

How Do I Find Them?
Products and packaging made from recycled material are everywhere — in stores that sell groceries, office supplies, auto parts, and everything in between. Recyclables are transformed into an amazing variety of new products. Plastic milk jugs return to yards and parks as plastic lumber and picnic tables. Steel food cans return to the hardware store as nails and screws. Newspapers become egg cartons. There's no limit to the things that can be made from recyclables.

Many products are identified recycled or partially recycled on the label or on the product itself. Others may contain recycled material but may not be identified. For instance, there's a good chance that the glass containers, aluminum and steel cans, paperboard boxes and plastic detergent bottles you buy are made of some recycled material.

Some products and packaging also have labels describing the amount of "pre-consumer" and "post-consumer" waste that was used. "Pre-consumer" waste is also known as "manufacturing waste," and includes any scraps, trimmings, over-runs, etc., from the manufacturing process. "Post-consumer" waste is a product or other material that has served its intended use and has been discarded and then collected for recycling.

DID YOU KNOW THAT...

  • For every ton of paper you recycle, you save 17 trees, 464 gallons of oil, 42 gallons of gasoline, 4,210 KWH of electricity, and 7,000 gallons of water.
  • Recycling glass reduces water use by 50%.
  • Using recycled aluminum instead of virgin ore saves 4 tons of bauxite and 1,500 pounds of petroleum coke and pitch for every ton of reused aluminum; Recycling 40 aluminum cans saves the energy equivalent to 1 gallon of gasoline. In 2003, Americans recycled enough aluminum cans to save more than 15 million barrels of oil. It takes the same amount of energy to make one aluminum beverage can from scratch that it does to produce 20 cans from recycled material.
  • Using recycled iron and steel instead of virgin ore to make new steel results in 40% reduction in water use and 90% savings in virgin materials used.
  • Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
  • Recycling one tin can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.
  • Using recycled paper instead of virgin materials reduces air pollution by 74% and water pollution by 35%.
  • Recycling glass reduces air pollution by 20% and mining wastes by 80%