Recycling is a process, a series of activities, so to speak, that includes: the collection and sorting of waste materials, the processing of these materials to produce new products, and the purchase and use of these new products by consumers. consumers.
Recycling is more optimized and efficient if we practice the three R’s of waste management: reduce, reuse, recycle.
Reducing waste that otherwise goes to recycling centers or landfills is achieved through intentional decrease in our purchases and consumption, composting of organic waste, and outright refusal to use disposable items like Styrofoam and plastic bags. plastic. The reuse of materials serves to lengthen the use of a particular item. Examples of this are: reusing glass bottles into artistic lampshades, giving your old cell phones to family or friends to reuse, and recycling street trash cans into community bathtubs.
But why recycle? Why go to the trouble of recycling your trash? How does recycling benefit us and the environment?
Let’s review the benefits of recycling:
Recycling helps protect the environment
Recycling drastically reduces the amount of waste that goes into our landfills or is burned in incineration plants. Landfills in most cities are designed to prevent toxic chemicals that leak from decaying solid waste from reaching our water systems. But for how long? We are already receiving reports of hazardous chemicals contaminating water supplies in some cities. Burning solid waste to generate electricity may be efficient, but we pay the price in terms of increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Recycling helps conserve limited resources
To put this benefit in proper perspective, consider this statement from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection: “By recycling more than 1 million tons of steel in 2004, Pennsylvanians saved 1.3 million tons of iron ore, 718,000 tons of coal and 62,000 tons of limestone. Through the recycling of newsprint, office paper and mixed papers, we saved almost more than 8.2 million trees.”
Resources such as oil and precious metals (gold, silver, bauxite, copper, etc.) are finite resources that will run out sooner or later. Cell phone and computer manufacturers such as Dell and Apple recognize the need for a constant supply of raw materials; most actively participate in buy-back programs to recycle used product materials.
Recycling promotes energy efficiency
Recycling is much more efficient, in terms of energy consumption, than producing something from fresh raw material. Done on a national scale, this could lead to a significant reduction in our energy costs. The energy required to extract, process and transport the metal from a mine to a refinery is obviously much higher than that required to recycle the metal from used products: it costs more energy to make a new aluminum can from fresh material than make 20 cans of recycled materials!
Recycling helps build a strong economy
All of the cost reduction, energy efficiency, material conservation, and job creation benefits of recycling add up to help build a strong economy for our country. Recycling, done on a national scale, has a huge positive impact on the economy. There was a drop in the price of recyclable materials last year when the financial crisis began, but it is a testament to the resilience of this industry that prices are now back to pre-crisis levels, a recovery that is far ahead. from most other industries. Jobs are being created and city and town governments are enjoying huge savings on electricity, garbage collection and landfill costs.
Recycling creates jobs
Recycling creates more jobs than dumping or incineration of waste. That is a benefit that we cannot lose sight of, in this time of recession and high unemployment rate. Consider the disposal of 10,000 tons of solid waste: burning it to generate electricity will create 1 job; collecting and throwing this in a landfill will create 6 jobs; processing waste for recycling will create 36 jobs!
Recycling Builds Community
People come together and build communities around common causes, issues, and advocates. Recycling is no different. In many neighborhoods and cities across the country, we see concerned citizens working together in recycling initiatives, environmental lobby groups, and free recycling groups. If you’re new to recycling or environmental advocacy, find a local group to work with. Staying the course is more fun and rewarding when you have other fans cheering you on.
Recycling can be financially rewarding
If you just want to make money to survive these tough times or start a home business, recycling is a profitable option. It is relatively easy and inexpensive to start a home recycling business. You just need to plan what material (cell phone, paper or metals, etc.) you intend to collect, plan for storage, contact the recycling plant for prices, and you are ready to start collecting recyclables and reselling them to recycling. ease into a profit of a hundred. All of the big recycling giants in the US started as home-based businesses years ago; you can too; those guys recognized the huge potential of this business long before the crowd.
The benefits of recycling for each one of us, for society and for the environment are our compelling reasons why we recycle. For many of us, recycling has become second nature: a way of life. It is a small but extremely vital component of environmental protection: without recycling, all our efforts to protect the planet will be less effective, even useless. Let’s all keep recycling.
