For Immediate Release April 22, 2011

ISRI’s Earth Day 2011 Quiz: What’s Your Recycling GQ?

Every day is Earth Day for Recyclers

Check for Correct Answers at www.isri.org today, April 22

Washington, D.C. – The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI) today – Earth Day 2011 -- released a new quiz designed to test the GQ, or “green quotient,” of recyclers, manufacturers, teachers, students, media and lawmakers.

The new quiz has been designed to help educate Earth Day revelers that recycling goes far, far beyond the bin; in fact, in 2010 alone, scrap recyclers and manufacturers processed approximately 130 million metric tons of material. These recycled commodities:

• Strengthen the US economy

• Create new jobs as more and more recycled materials are used in the manufacture of new products and more equipment to enable greater recycling is built

• Protect the environment by reducing air and water pollution as well as greenhouse gas emissions

• Save energy that otherwise would be expended on processing virgin materials

“Scrap recyclers, manufacturers and processors work each and every day to sustain our economy and our environment,” ReMA President Robin Wiener said.

To test your GQ, see if you can answer the questions below:   

Q1: How many aluminum cans would you need to stack on top of each other to get to the moon?

Q2: Approximately how much energy does recycling a single plastic bottle save?

Q3: How much CO2 is avoided by recycling more than 130 million tons of scrap material throughout the United States? 

Q4: What countries/markets were three of the six largest markets for US scrap exports in 2010?

Q5: What is the difference between ferrous and non-ferrous metals?

Q6: One metric ton of electronic scrap from personal computers contains more gold than that recovered from how many tons of gold ore?

Q7: What year (BC) did people learn to melt or re-melt metal?

Q8: An artificial turf field uses 125 tons of crumb rubber made from scrap tires. How many tires – approximately -- must be recycled to make the field?

Q9: If you can’t grow a commodity, how do people find the materials they need to manufacture new products?

Q10: How much stainless steel is recycled in the United States each year?

Q11: What is the recycling rate of cars?

Q12: If the ferrous scrap processed in the United States in 2010 were put into rail cars, how long would the train stretch?

Q13: What does the Spanish translation of river, RIOS, have to do with the scrap recycling industry?

Q14: How many pounds of paper per person are recycled each year in the United States? 

Bonus Question: When was ReMA in its current iteration founded?

Answers to these questions, and lots more information can be found here.