This bar chart below shows the proportion of recycled home-generating wastes including plastics, cans, paper and glass from a certain city in 1992, 1997 and 2002.
Overall, the percentage of recycled waste increased during the three years. While glass had the highest recycling rate, plastic was the least to be reused.
The percentage of glass used for regeneration had seen a dramatic growth during this period. It rose from originally around 15% to its peak of barely below 50% in 2002. Meanwhile, paper had the same starting point as glass and grew even faster during the first five years to more than 30% in 1997, then reached nearly 40% in 2002.
Two different patterns were shown in the figure of plastic and cans. Cans originally accounted for the highest percentage among the 4 kinds of household waste which was 10%. However, it dropped sharply to below 15% in 1997 despite the fact that recycled cans comprised between 20% and 25% 5 years later. Plastic was the most overlooked waste with only 10 % of it being recycled in the first year, as opposed to a percentage roughly within 15% in 1997. This approximate ratio of recycled glass has leveled off until 2002.