The slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” has been around since the 1970s, but why are these three actions critically important?
By taking just a few minutes to sort out your recyclable waste, you can directly contribute to the economic and environmental wellbeing of our planet, including reducing your carbon footprint. If you sometimes wonder, “Why should I recycle?” then give this a read to learn the environmental and economic benefits of recycling, what materials you can recycle, and how each person can do their part in preserving our environment.
Benefits of Recycling
Recycling encourages us to be mindful of our resource consumption, and our trash creation. By reducing them both, we can improve our local and global environment.
1. Conserves Natural Resources
Despite the seeming abundance of natural resources on this planet, they do have limits.
We simply can’t rely on them for crafting new products forever.
Almost all plastics come from the extraction of fossil fuels, a huge source of energy consumption and resource allocation.
Paper is easy to recycle, but we still chop down too many trees, which are essential to maintaining our ecosystems.
These materials cannot be quickly replenished, so reducing our intake is vital. This is one of the most important reasons to recycle.
2. Reduces Pollution and Greenhouse Gases
Because recycling reduces our need for newer materials, it lowers the amount of air and water pollution created in both extraction and production processes. In fact, recycling is 194 times more effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions than landfills and incineration. By increasing our recycling efforts, we can remove even more harmful gasses from our atmosphere as we work to combat climate change.
For example, the most commonly recycled material, plastic, is one of the largest polluters during initial production. By recycling more plastic products, we can drastically cut the amount of pollution that enters the environment.
3. Reduces Landfill Waste
Although many waste products can be recycled, it is estimated that only 32% of trash is currently recycled or composted.
With 68% of our products ending up in landfills, we waste resources, take up valuable land, and create environmentally unhealthy zones. Increasing our recycling rates will help our communities and the planet overall.
4. Conserves Energy
Recycling materials into new products uses far less energy than creating new materials. This savings is equal to a reduction in carbon emissions that would result from taking almost 42 million cars off the road each year. Considering our low recycling rates, these are very impressive numbers, and increasing our recycling habits could make a huge impact on saving energy and waste management.
5. Creates Better Jobs
The recycling industry reports that, for every 1,000 tons of recycled material, nearly two new jobs are created.
Thus, an organized national increase in recycling could lead to a huge spike in green jobs, especially well-paying local ones. The economic boost created by an influx of lucrative jobs would be great for local communities, as well as the nation.
6. Lowers Production Costs
Recycling product materials, rather than harvesting and processing raw materials from the earth, can lower or reduce the energy cost of production by up to 95%. This saved expense can help offset what it costs to do the actual collecting and recycling of those materials.
What Can I Recycle?
1. Plastic Recycling
As one of the most common materials used across the globe, plastics are essential to the recycling process. However, a lot of the material that could become recycled plastics ends up in landfills instead, and breaks down into our environment.
2. Paper Recycling
Recycling paper and clean cardboard is a huge help toward preserving our planet's forests and water supply. One ton of recycled paper or cardboard can save up to 17 trees.
White paper, when created from recycled materials, produces 74% less air pollution, 35% less water pollution, and 75% less processed energy than paper from virgin fibers. Overall, recycling any clean paper is important for our environment.
3. Glass Recycling
Glass is entirely recyclable, and can be used and reused endlessly without loss in quality or purity. Once recycled, this material can be ground down into dust and crafted into new glass products. Recycled glass can also be used in production furnaces, reducing the amount of emissions released at glass-blowing plants.
Even better, recycled glass has a direct positive environmental impact. For every ton of recycled glass used in production, over one ton of other natural resources are conserved. This means a net positive outcome for our planet!
Why Should You Recycle?
Overall, recycling is an essential part of taking care of our planet for future generations. In addition to the many environmental benefits, recycling can deliver several economic benefits that everyone can enjoy.
Aluminum, glass, paper, and cardboard can all be universally recycled. Plastic is also important to recycle, but be sure your local plant can handle your product’s plastic type first.
If protecting the environment is a goal, we can assist. Our best-selling recyclable bins are available to kick start your recycling programme at the office, school or home.
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