The last few weeks, we have looked at the benefits of paper, glass, and plastic recycling. This week, we'll look at recycling aluminum.

Aluminum cans are everywhere. More than 100 billion aluminum cans are sold in the United States each year, but less than 50 percent of these cans are recycled. That's a shame, because making aluminum from virgin materials is bad for the planet and bad for people.

Making aluminum from virgin materials puts tons of harmful pollutants into the atmosphere, which contribute to climate change and creates smog— a known health hazard—and acid rain. Bauxite ore must be mined, which destroys natural areas and harms local, often indigenous, communities near the mines. And the whole process requires lots of energy, created mainly by burning fossil fuels, which causes another set of environmental and health problems.

If instead we recycle aluminum, we could reap big benefits. Making an aluminum can from recycled instead of virgin materials uses 90- 95 percent LESS energy and generates significantly less air pollution. Recycled aluminum is kept in the United States, which creates jobs at home. What's really great news is that aluminum can be recycled indefinitely. If we recycled all of our aluminum, we'd have no need to mine for ore.

So let's keep all of our aluminum out of the landfill!