Different materials recycled from 1982 to 2010 in a particular country.

The line graph illustrates the percentage of recycling rates of paper and cardboard, glass containers, aluminium cans and plastics of one country between 1982 and 2010. Overall, the proportion of paper and cardboard that was recycled was the highest among all four classes of material, but this experienced a downward trend after 1994, whereas there was a continuing upward trend in the recycling of the other materials. In 1982, the recycling rates of paper and cardboard and glass wares were 65% and 50% respectively. While paper and cardboard briefly oscillated before skyrocketing to 80% in 1994, and then gradually declining to 70% in the end of the period; Plastics, on the other hand, took a nose dive to 40% in the year 1990 before steadily increasing to 60% in 2010. Aluminium cans were first recycled in 1986, which grew steadily till 2002 at about a quarter, before rapidly soaring to nearly a half (45%). However this was not the case with plastics, despite being introduced late in the year 1990, was recycled at a significant low fraction (2%) at first, but continued to grow steady and then plateaued to almost one-tenth (8%) over the period.