How useful is it to recycle waste

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How to Recycle and Why You Should Do It

The recycling rate in the United States has increased from less than 7% in 1960 to over 34% in 2015. While the progress is promising, we still have a long way to go. This resource should help get you started so that you can recycle at work, home, and school.

Importance of Recycling

Why should we recycle? It’s a fairly simple concept. When you transform something old into something new, it benefits the environment in a number of ways. Materials and natural resources aren’t wasted. Energy is saved during the manufacturing process. There’s less waste going to landfills. Not to mention, it helps keep wildlife safe.

Recycling also helps create well-paying jobs. A study in 2016 found that recycling and reuse activities in the United States accounted for 757,000 jobs.

We can all make a difference by practicing proper recycling. As the County of Arlington Virginia Trash and Recycling site says, “Recyclables are collected locally, but impacted globally.”

How to Recycle

The main barrier to recycling is understanding the process. That means knowing where and what to recycle. Each city has their own regulations and processes for recycling. Make sure you do your research.

Where to Recycle

There are a number of places that you can set-up for easy recycling. Your home will be based on local city regulations.

Check with their recycling department to find out things like:

You may also want to browse the most extensive recycling database in North America. Enter the item you’d like to recycle and your zip code to find nearby drop-off centers. Knowing your recycling options can reduce stress and increase the likelihood of follow-through.

What to Recycle

There are few materials that cannot be recycled. The most common recyclables include paper, batteries, plastics, and glass.

Paper

According to the latest data from the EPA, paper products make up the largest percentage (26%) of all waste materials in the United States. This is an upward trend that can continue to improve. Make sure to keep magazines, cardboard boxes, and mail out of the trash.

Plastic

Progress on plastic recycling has been slow in the United States. Back in 1970 less than 1% of plastic waste was recycled, and that number 45 years later was only 9%. Plastic places an added stressor on landfills as it can take anywhere from five to 600 years to break down.

Glass

Only 1% of glass in the United States was recycled in 1970. That number slowly increased to 26% in 2015. Now, it presents an opportunity for additional growth. You may have jam jars, dressing containers, or drink bottles that can all be rinsed and recycled.

Metals

You can recycle those soup cans, soda cans, and even aluminum foil! Make sure to clean off any food particles before you toss it in the recycle bin. Americans currently discard about 2.7 million tons of aluminum each year and only about 50% is recycled.

Batteries

Did you know that car batteries are the most recycled product in America? They aren’t the only type of battery that you can recycle. Determine what type of battery you have and find a recycling location.

Electronics

A United Nations study reported that globally, only 20% of e-waste was recycled in 2016. This e-waste includes consumer electronics including: laptops, mobile phones, and TVs. These products can contain toxic substances, so disposing of them properly is even more important for the planet.

Tips For Recycling

Even masters of recycling can find room for improvement. Here are some tips to recycle more efficiently and effectively.

How Does Recycling Help the Environment? (& 10+ Materials to Recycle)

Recycling is great, and we all know it. But, how does recycling help the environment? Here are the important benefits of recycling.

Why is recycling important? What are the benefits of recycling?

We’ve all heard of the Three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

As a slogan, it’s about perfect—it is short, can’t be misunderstood, and has the pleasant ring of alliteration.

To reduce is to cut down on what is produced and what we consume.

To reuse is to find ways to repurpose items which otherwise are designed to be discarded.

To recycle is to submit items to be broken down into base materials and converted into future products.

Though this catchy phrase makes an easy-to-live-by rule, it only makes us question further. So, in this guide, we’ll look at ways recycling helps the environment. Shortly after, we’ll discuss common materials you can separate and recycle, as well as why those materials are important to recycle.

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How Does Recycling Help the Environment?

Here are a few ways recycling helps the environment and fight climate change:

1. Recycling Conserves Resources

When we recycle plastic, we reduce the need for more plastic to be manufactured. By recycling paper, we do our part to lessen deforestation and save trees from being cut down. Separating cans and other metals helps to cut down on damaging mining and our growing need for raw materials.

2. Recycling Saves Energy

It takes much more energy to create industrial-grade materials from scratch than it does just to reform old materials and reuse them. For example, it is estimated that “recycling aluminum saves 90% to 95% of the energy needed to make aluminum from bauxite ore.” Recycling saves energy because recycled materials don’t require factories to expend so much greenhouse gas emissions than they would if they had created the same item again from scratch using raw materials.

3. Recycling Protects the Environment

When we cut down on the amount of new materials and natural resources we need to extract from the earth, whether through farming, mining, logging, etc., we protect vulnerable ecosystems and wildlife from harm or eradication and allow them to exist for generations to come. Recycling materials emits way less greenhouse gases into the environment than primary production.

According to the Inventory of Average Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Denmark, Norway and Sweden, here are the differences in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from primary production vs. production from recycling:

* Unit used is kg CO2-equivalent/kg material.

4. Recycling Slows the Spread of Landfills

In the United States alone, there are 2,000 active landfills all full of solid waste and emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as it all slowly decomposes. This doesn’t account for the many that have been closed due to reaching capacity, or the future landfills that’ll have to be created when the active landfills become landfull.

5. Recycling Creates Jobs

That’s right: believe it or not, one of the benefits of recycling is that it actually helps create jobs! A study by Friends of the Earth determined that reaching a 70% home recycle rate would create 51,400 jobs in the United Kingdom alone. In the US, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that reaching a 75% recycling rate nationwide would create 1.5 million new jobs.

6. Recycling Supports the SDGs

Our future and the future of all generations after us depend on sustainable production and consumption. As such, recycling is one of the best ways to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

What Should Be Recycled?

So, we’ve covered some top ways on how recycling helps the environment.

Here are the most common materials to recycle and how to go about it:

1. Plastics

Your flimsy plastic grocery bag? It takes 10–20 years to decompose.

That single-use water bottle you bought? It can take up to 450 years to break down in a landfill.

Other, more durable plastics? Up to 1,000 years!

Plastics are difficult for the environment, sure, but unfortunately they are difficult to recycle, as well. Not all plastics can be recycled, first of all. Then, there are different types of plastics which require varying processes and considerations.

The Resin Identification Coding System (RIC) separates plastics into seven different types. These seven types of plastic are:

The number above also corresponds to the recycling number of a plastic, which you can most often find on the bottom of the item, along with an abbreviation (in parentheses above).

When you recycle plastics, you cut down on the long degradation time, while helping to make sustainable new products. According to Weill Cornell Medicine, “recycled plastic bottles are used to make carpet, clothing and even auto parts.”

2. Paper

Paper products are relatively simple to recycle.

Depending on your country, city, and district regulations, you may separate all paper together, or separate simple paper products from plastic-coated paper products, such as a Starbucks cup or orange juice carton. In the latter case, this is because it takes special chemicals and an extra step to remove the glue, plastic, and other residue from the paper in order to reuse it.

3. Glass

Glass is just about the longest-lasting man-made material, taking up to 1 million years to degrade in the environment!

If that’s not enough reason to recycle your glass bottles, there’s also the sand loss. Sand is the key ingredient in most glass, but the supplies are dwindling. Yes, believe it or not, sand is not as infinite as you might imagine—in fact, scientists are saying we’re facing a growing sand shortage, some going as far to call it a sand crisis.

The good news is that it’s one of the easier materials to recycle. First, a treatment plant sorts them by colors. Then, they give them a wash and remove stickers and other impurities. Finally, they melt down crushed glass pieces and shape them into new bottles and jars ready for us to purchase again.

4. Metal

Metals must be mined from the earth, which damages the areas and environments those mines are dug.

Recycling metals can be tricky, as there are dozens of metals. However, the good news for the average person is that most metals can be recycled together, as recycling plants sort them into their respective categories.

5. Organic Materials, Food & Compost

Organic waste such as food is the most biodegradable of the lot. The best way to recycle your own organic waste is to start composting it. Compost is organic material that has broken down, and it may appear to you as rich, dark soil.

Making compost is simple, and all you need is the passage of time. Then, when you’ve transformed past eggshells and orange peels into nutrient-rich dirt, use it for planting, gardening, or dump it in a public park (check your local laws first!). In some cities, such as New York, brown bins for organic waste are available, since there’s not much room to dispose of compost you create.

6. Electronics

Known as E-waste (short for electronic waste), this includes all discarded electronic items, whether broken, unwanted, or at the end of their working lives.

The hard part of recycling electronics comes down to their constituent parts—there are dozens of gadgets and gizmos on the average circuit board, made out of a variety of metals, epoxy, glass, and other materials.

However, the good news is that almost all of the components can be reused. According to the EPA, “for every million cell phones we recycle, 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered.”

To recycle your used electronics, there are often bins at large retailers, such as Best Buy or Staples, where you can donate.

7. Batteries

Batteries require special consideration when discarding them, as they contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals which shouldn’t decompose at your average landfill. Though there’s a potential for great harm to the environment should batteries end up there, there is also a lot of value in recycling batteries.

For the general public, we don’t have to worry too much about the various metals, chemicals, or battery types, such as lithium, alkaline, or zinc. Rather, just as with consumer electronics, there are often used battery receptacles located at many big-box stores around town.

8. Tires & Commercial Rubber

When a tire goes flat or the tread wears off, that’s about it, even though about 99% of the tire remains. Not only is there a lot of waste in this type of waste, but they take up lots of room at landfills, as well, with 75% of their volume being void space.

Many tires, and other commercial rubber materials, are difficult to recycle, so much of them have been burned to get rid of them, even when properly discarded. However, as technology advances, there have also been advances in the materials used for tires, with an increasing amount of biodegradability and reuse potential.

When getting rid of your tires, avoid the landfill. Instead, Google around for a recycling facility which specifically takes care of tires. If they can retread the tire, it could go back on the shelf for you or the next consumer. Otherwise, at least they’ll dispose of it in a way which won’t poison the ground and the creatures around.

9. Clothing & Textiles

Textile recycling, which includes clothing, rags, sheets, curtains, linens, and other similar materials, is a key way to reduce municipal solid waste (MSW). According to the EPA, the US generated 16,890 tons of textiles in 2017, of which just 2,570 tons were recycled.

If they make their way to landfills, clothing and other fibrous materials can take up to several hundred years to break down. But, recycling these textiles helps the environment by skipping the landfill and sending the clothing to plants to be sorted, cleaned, shredded, and respun.

To recycle clothing, check your local mall or retailers, such as H&M, as they often have bins where you can donate your used and unwanted garments. And an added bonus—many often give you a shopping discount for turning in your old clothes!

10. Fiberboard & Paperboard

First, is there a difference between fiberboard and paperboard?

Usually, most people use the term cardboard to refer to both items, but there’s a difference, according to some sources (though nothing official).

Paperboard is thin and formed of one layer, like paper, but thicker, less foldable, and more rigid than paper (think of a greeting card). Corrugated fiberboard is the three-layer kind you may be familiar with in shipping boxes, consisting of two rigid layers sandwiching a wavy middle one for strength.

In some recycling programs, there’s a differentiation between fiberboard recycling and paperboard recycling—some accept paperboard with paper, others accept paperboard with fiberboard separate from paper, and a few want all three to be separated.

So, to sum up on the benefits of recycling and how recycling helps the environment—well, there are plenty of reasons, as you have seen. From reducing carbon emissions to conserving natural resources, recycling is one of the best ways we can fight climate change.

Have any feedback, questions, or other ways recycling protects the environment? Let us know in the comments below!

Oh, and if you have any recycling ideas, large or small, share them with the Goodwall community to help it get the visibility, traction, and support it deserves! Not a member of Goodwall yet? Sign up quickly and easily with the links below.

Why is it important to recycle?

Environmentalists continually urge residents to pay importance to recycling. Regardless of the importance, rubbish recycling in Brisbane is not nearly practised as much as it should be. Proof to this lies in the fact that a large amount of waste, which can otherwise be recycled, still ends up in Brisbane landfills.

While not all waste can be recycled, leaving most to inevitably end up in landfills, the fact of the matter is that most people – through sheer laziness – continue to mix recyclable rubbish in with their non-recyclable rubbish. And, due to the scale of economics, it is often not segregated. The result: recyclable rubbish ends up degrading alongside other rubbish.

Today, I would like to take this opportunity to throw some light on the importance of recycling. Continue reading as I share the current state of recycling in Australia and why you should consider recycling. Hopefully, this article will make you become more aware of the importance of recycling rubbish in Brisbane so together we can reduce the amount of recyclable rubbish that ends up in landfill.

Current statistics on household recycling in Australia

Australians have been paying attention to recycling. According to the ABS, the recycling activities of Australian households grew significantly from 1996 to 2009. While 91% of Australian households engaged in some form of recycling in 1996, this figure grew to 98% in 2009. Moreover, 86% of all Australian households claimed to reuse waste in 2009.

These figures are definitely commendable and can be attributed to the introduction and continual use of the council’s kerbside recycling bins. In fact, kerbside recycling has been a successful solution for rubbish recycling in Brisbane and across the country with more than 91% of Australian households relying on this service.

While these statistics are great, they do not indicate how much waste is recycled. And, as the owner of 4 Waste Removals, I need to make sure that a significant amount of household waste is sent to recycling depots rather than landfills. Once again, this brings me to the importance of recycling.

So, let’s take a look at just why you should take recycling seriously.

Recycling reduces the impact of waste on the environment

Recycling dramatically reduces the impact of waste on the environment. This is fairly straightforward to understand – the more we recycle, the less waste reaches a landfill. Not only does this conserve valuable landfill space, but it also ensures that fewer emissions are generated.

When recyclable (organic) waste reaches a landfill, it decomposes in the absence of oxygen. This process produces greenhouse gases including methane and carbon dioxide. These greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming.

As such, you must do your best to ensure that organic waste never reaches a landfill. So, the next time you dispose household waste, separate your food, paper, timber and garden clippings from non-recyclable waste. And, should you require a better and bigger solution than the council’s kerbside recycling bins, you can always make use of a company that offers rubbish recycling in Brisbane, such as 4 Waste Removals.

Recycling conserves valuable resources

Another benefit of recycling is that is conserves valuable resources. When waste is recycled, valuable natural resources such as water, coal and oil are conserved. These resources would otherwise be used in the production of new materials. By sending your waste to be recycling, you can help conserve these virgin materials and natural resources so they can be used where they really need to be used.

Recycling saves energy

Another benefit of recycling is that it conserves energy, which would otherwise be used in manufacturing new products. The manufacturing of any new product requires energy for extraction and refining, and processing and transportation of raw materials.

Recycling waste to create a new product uses much less energy than what is required when using raw materials. As an example, recycling aluminium saves more than 95% of the energy that is required to manufacture aluminium from raw materials.

Producing new energy may be difficult, but we can all play a part by saving energy. And, recycling of waste saves energy in more ways than we can save by other means.

Recycling increases the life of a landfill

While I’ve mentioned that recyclable rubbish shouldn’t end up in landfill, did you know it also increases the age of a landfill?

Like I mentioned earlier, not all waste can be stopped from reaching a landfill. Thus, it is inevitable that landfills will eventually fill up. However, by sending less waste, we can definitely prolong the lifespan of a landfill. And, the easiest way of doing so is by ensuring that recyclable waste doesn’t end up in landfills.

So, when you’re disposing rubbish, make sure that you separate your waste before throwing it in the garbage bin or driving to the nearest rubbish tip. This will help the tip divert your recyclable waste away from landfills to recycling depots.

Alternatively, you hire 4 Waste Removals to manage your rubbish recycling in Brisbane. Our team of professionals will take your recyclable waste to the nearest depot for proper disposal.

Recycling saves the lives of marine animals

Plastic pollution is especially prevalent in oceans. In fact, it is estimated that 90% of all waste floating on the surface of oceans is plastic waste.

This plastic waste is extremely harmful to the ecosystem. Every year, over 1 million sea birds and over 100,000 marine animals are killed by plastic pollution. Moreover, all sea turtles, a large range of fish species, 22% of all crustaceans and 44% of seabird species have been found to have plastic in their bodies.

While we cannot recycle all plastics, there are many that we can. And by recycling these plastics, we can ensure that it causes less harm to marine animals. Doing so also reduces the amount of plastic that reaches landfills.

However it is very important to know the difference between which plastics can and cannot be recycled. If you’re unsure, it’s recommended that you seek help of a company that offers rubbish recycling in Brisbane. Companies such as 4 Waste Removals can help determine which types can be recycled and moreover, we will remove all your waste for you.

Conclusion:

Australian households have certainly demonstrated an increase in recycling. However, we still need to understand the importance of recycling. Recycling reduces the impact of waste on the environment, it conserves valuable resources, it saves energy, increases the life of landfills and saves the lives of marine animals. By engaging in recycling activities, we can all make the world a better place to live in.

If you agree with me, then I urge you to separate your rubbish into recyclable and non-recyclable before disposal. And, you should always seek help from professionals to help you with rubbish recycling in Brisbane should you be unsure of what you can and cannot recycle.

To hire reliable rubbish recycling experts in Brisbane, consider us at 4 Waste Removals. Get in touch with us to find out more about how we can help you with recycling today!

Why Is Recycling Important?

Each and every day we throw away vast quantities of items destined for landfill. With waste playing such a key role in our lives, there are many reasons why it’s important to recycle. This article takes a look at the importance of recycling and the many benefits it can have.

Recycling Conserves Resources

When factories produce new goods, they consume various raw materials in the process – both directly and indirectly. Recycling can help to conserve these resources in different ways.

Direct materials are the ones that go into making physical products. Let’s use the example of the automotive industry consuming steel as a direct material. By recycling the steel of our old cars, auto manufacturers can then reuse it to manufacture new ones. This reduces the amount of steel that we need to source from traditional supplies. As a direct result of this, we conserve various natural resources such as carbon and iron ore – both of which are used to produce steel.

Other examples of direct materials include the wood that goes into manufacturing furniture and copper that can be used to make circuit boards and other electrical items. By recycling old furniture, we reduce the need for logging to take place. When we recycle electrical goods, we reduce the need for copper mining to take place.

Indirect materials are those that might be used anywhere else in the manufacturing process or its supply chain. For example, let’s take a look at our automotive industry example once again. In this case, an indirect material could be the energy we use when mining iron ore. By recycling steel from old cars, we reduce the need to mine for iron ore, thus eliminating the energy this process would consume. Whilst metal recycling still consumes significant levels of energy, it is still only a fraction of the energy we use when mining iron ore.

Nowadays, it’s common for new products to contain recycled materials. By using more recyclable materials in new goods, we are helping to conserve the earth’s natural resources.

Recycling Saves Energy

When we extract raw materials from the ground, a significant level of energy is required. When we use recycled materials in manufacturing, we help to conserve energy. To sum up, manufacturing products from raw materials is a bad idea and consumes a lot of energy. Manufacturing products from recycled materials is a good idea and will result in more energy saved.

Recycling Reduces Landfill

A growing problem in today’s society is the scale and number of landfill sites. Every item we throw away has to end up somewhere. Without an efficient recycling system in place, the amount of rubbish we send to landfill will only increase.

Landfill sites have serious implications for the local environment and our atmosphere. They are notorious for producing significant levels of methane (CH₄). This is a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. It can also stir up quite a stench that might affect local residents.

The more we recycle, the more waste we are directing away from landfill. As a result of this, we can reduce the impact landfill has on the environment and our atmosphere.

Recycling Protects the Environment

Recycling helps to protect the environment in a number of ways. The most important of these is how recycling conserves natural resources.

Mining, quarrying, logging and refining processes often produce significant levels of air and water pollution. These processes also produce numerous greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide (CO₂) which contribute to climate change.

Reducing the level of logging means there are more trees left in the world. Trees help to purify the air by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere.

Recycling Is Good For The Economy

Often overlooked are the economic aspects of recycling. Recycling is a booming industry, right across the globe. It helps to support economic growth by creating jobs in a number of sectors. From people working on a recycling line to waste management consultants, recycling has helped to create many jobs in many different countries.

Recycling Could Save You Money

Did you know that recycling can save you money? Whilst everyday waste recycling won’t save you money, how we reuse other products might. If you’re thinking of throwing away an item, take a step back and think about how you could reuse it. You might have a use for the item today or at some point in the future. This avoids you having to buy a brand new item to replace the perfectly good one you were thinking of putting in the trash.

What Can You Do?

If you already understand the reasons why you should recycle, here is a list of useful tips you can follow in order to help make a difference:

The statements above show how easily we can reduce the impact on landfill sites. If the necessary services are in place for your local area, then why not do your part by following the simple steps above?

You can learn more about how you can recycle by visiting the United States Environmental Protection Agency website.

Overview

Hopefully, you now understand the importance of recycling and the many benefits it can have. By recycling more, you will help to conserve natural resources whilst cleaning up the environment and the air we breathe. This is not only vital for us, but also for future generations.

Why Is It Important to Recycle?

Apr. 17 2020, Updated 11:10 a.m. ET

The three golden rules of sustainability we were taught as kids are reduce, reuse, and recycle. But for some reason, “recycle” was the one most highlighted. As we learn more and more about going green, it’s becoming more and more clear that recycling is actually the least important of those three totems. Sure, recycling is important, but if we reduced what we were using and reused what we were using in place of single-use options, there would be significantly less stuff in the world to recycle. And less stuff is key to — not to get too hyperbolic here but — saving the planet.

It is important to recycle, but while we may know that we’re “supposed to do it,” many of us might not understand exactly why. And let’s be honest it’s tricky, too. Different materials — even different kinds of plastics — contain numbers, called resin identification codes, that indicate how these materials should and can be recycled, meaning they need to be separated. These numbers go from one to seven and if you don’t separate them accordingly, it could mean an imperfect recycling choice.

Electronics and tech products also have their own category for recycling, which forces people to have to separate them from other recycling. And even if you recycle “correctly,” it could be all for naught. After all, items made of multiple materials or stained with food or grease often can’t be recycled.

Plus, there’s always the chance that something lightweight (and probably plastic) will blow off or jam a recycling machine. To top it all off, some plastics are completely non-recyclable.

Like we said, recycling can be tricky, but still — it’s important! Keep reading for all the benefits of recycling and why it’s essential for the planet.

Why is it important to recycle?

When a material is used to make something, it’s important that it breaks down organically, can be reused, or recycled into something else. Otherwise, that material only serves one purpose before it ends up in a landfill long-term where it will not break down.

If waste is not recycled, it can negatively impact our environment in many ways. Waste can emit greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and, therefore, climate change. Non-recycled waste can contribute to air pollution, water pollution, and put animal lives and human lives at risk. Alternatively, if we recycle, we can significantly reduce the amount of pollution our waste creates, according to Recycling-Guide.com.

Recycling is also crucial because of how waste can impact animals (and consequently, humans because, you know, food chain). Waste can cause loss of natural habitats and contributes to negative impacts like climate change and global warming, which can also destroy animals’ natural habitats. When animals — and other biological organisms — lose their habitats, they can die off or starve.

Recycling also means using materials that have already been used, rather than creating new raw materials. Since raw materials often come from our most important forests, like rainforests for example, recycling can cut back on the need for raw materials. Raw materials could also include natural resources like timber, water, and minerals. When we cut back on new materials, we can preserve natural habitats, forests, rainforests, and give the Earth a chance to grow and heal.

Energy is another reason why recycling is so necessary. When we use raw materials to make new things, it requires a lot of energy. And water, too. But it requires less energy to recycle old materials into something new, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

What are the benefits of recycling?

There are so many benefits of recycling, from positive environmental impacts to stimulating the economy. The EPA reports that recycling actually helps to create jobs in both the recycling and manufacturing industries in the U.S., which is crucial to American job stability and security. Apart from creating jobs, the recycling industry also stimulates the American economy, since it means relying on domestic sources of materials rather than imported ones.

Recycling also has environmental benefits such as reducing waste that gets sent to landfills and incinerators, therefore cutting back on harmful greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and global warming. It also conserves important natural resources, prevents the spread of pollution, and saves energy.

Why is it important to recycle plastic?

In general, it is important to recycle any materials that can be recycled, but since plastics are such a massive part of the solid waste that humans make, it is particularly critical to recycle plastic.

When plastic is sent to a landfill, it does not break down. In fact, plastic rarely breaks down organically because it is not biodegradable. Coupled with the fact that many of plastic items humans use are single-use, meaning they are only used once before they are discarded, and it’s no wonder that 4waste.com reports that 30 million tons of plastic are disposed every year.

Since plastic can take anywhere from 500 to 1,000 years to actually break down, recycling it is a better alternative. We can’t get rid of the material naturally, so we can reuse it by recycling it into something else.

Why is it important to recycle metal products?

Recycling metal products saves energy, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and creates jobs. According to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), recycling metal can cut harmful emissions that cause global warming by anywhere from 300 to 500 million tons. Using recycled metal — aka scrap metal — in place of “new” metal also reduces mining waste by 97 percent. The National Institute of Health also reports that scrap metal requires less water.

Recycling metal products also significantly cuts back on energy. By using recycled scrap metals as a material, 92 percent of energy is saved for aluminum, 90 percent for copper, and 56 percent for steel.

Why is it important to recycle paper?

Like the recycling of most other materials, recycling paper saves energy, reduces greenhouse gases, and conserves crucial natural resources. Also, the more paper that is recycled, the less paper there is in landfills. Since paper can be recycled, it’s important to leave space in landfills for the materials that cannot be repurposed through recycling. Paper takes up space in landfills and goes to waste, since it can be recycled effectively.

According to ThoughtCo.com, one ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water. It also saves energy – about 4,000 kilowatts of it, which is actually enough to power the average American home for up to six months.

Why is it important to recycle cardboard?

The main benefits of recycling cardboard are similar to the benefits of recycling all other recyclable materials, as well. Recycling cardboard uses less water, cuts back on emissions, saves prime real estate in landfills for materials that are not recyclable, and prevents deforestation. Like paper, Planned Packaging of Illinois Corp (PPOIC) says that recycling one ton of cardboard can save 17 trees from harm, 7,000 gallons of water, 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide from emitting back into the environment, and reduces energy consumption by 64 percent.

In some states, like Massachusetts, for example, cardboard, paper, and non-waxed cardboard is banned from being trashed. The Massachusetts Waste Bans saves money on disposal costs, as well as has a positive effect on the environment.

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