Recycling is beneficial because it conserves valuable
natural resources, saves landfill space, reduces energy consumption, creates jobs, reduces
disposal costs and reduces water pollution, air pollution and green house gas
emissions:
Natural Resources - conserving
renewable resources
through recycling helps preserve undisturbed land and natural diversity
by
reducing the amount of land needed for agriculture and timber
production. The use of recycled materials reduces our consumption of
finite sources like oil, natural gas or earth ores - all of which are
finite.
Landfill Space - everything
that goes into a landfill stays there, taking up space. As waste breaks
down, which can take hundreds of years, it releases methane
gas, a large greenhouse gas emitter, and can emit toxic pollutants into our water table.
Energy Consumption - significantly less
energy is required to
make products with recycled materials than virgin materials. For
instance, it takes almost 20X the amount of energy to make aluminum
cans from raw ore than it does from recycled cans. Recycled plastic
products use up to 8X less energy. Reduced energy consumption means
less greenhouse gas emissions and less dependency on foreign oil.
Job
Creation - recycling
creates 8X to 10X more jobs than landfills and incinerators. Recycled
products manufacturers add to this statistic as they often employ
workers at higher rates than that of virgin material manufacturers.
Check outthe U.S. Recycling Economic
Information Project for a comprehensive study about the economic impacts of recycling performed by the EPA.
Disposal
Costs - by keeping recyclable items out of our
landfills, we reduce the need to build or expanded existing landfills,
a very costly undertaking. This reduces the waste providers expenses
and therefore the cost of garbage disposal is reduced.
Pollution -
we get most of our energy by burning fossil fuels. Using less energy
from these polluting sources
means less air pollution and water pollution. Also, the manufacturing
of new products from recycled materials consumes much less water. The
use of recycled material also reduces the need for mining of raw
materials. Mining causes soil erosion and chemical runoff when these
materials are processed.
Recycling Locator
Enter your zip code into the database at Earth911
for a comprehensive list of recycling locations near you. You can then
select the type of material you are wanting to recycle for recyclers that specialize in that recyclable item .