Why Everyone Should Recycle

Recycling is sort of like exercising: we all know we should do it, but not all of us do it as often as we should–and some of us don’t do it at all. However, there are lots of reasons why you should make an effort to recycle as much as possible. If you haven’t been diligent about recycling your garbage, here are seven good reasons why you should start.

It cuts back on global warming. Our planet is starting to feel the effects of global warming already–and we need to do whatever we can to lessen the impact. Production of certain materials from scratch can release significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Aluminum production is a prime example–producing new aluminum creates 95% more CO2 than recycling old aluminum cans. In addition, recycling paper saves trees–for each ton of paper recycled, 17 trees are saved. Each of these trees can extract around 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air in a year.

It makes us more energy-efficient. It often takes a great deal more energy to create something from scratch than to recycle it. For example, it takes twice as much energy to burn plastic as to recycle it; it takes 64% more energy to make paper than to recycle it; and recycling just one pound of steel can save enough energy to run a 60-watt bulb for one day. Read the rest of this entry »

Stopping Rubbish Pollution – 4 Essentials to Increase Recycling

To stop rubbish pollution by recycling is much harder for society to achieve than the old methods of “use it once and throw it away”. We all realise this but before we get carried away with the idea of “zero waste” and the end of landfills, let’s think for a while about the four essentials of successful recycling.

Like it or not experience has shown that all four have to be in place, and working properly before a stable recycling system can work efficiently and allow investors confidence to lend their money to the entrepreneurs society needs so badly to pick up the challenge and make their green business work profitably for them and at lowest cost to the community.

Each element needs to work properly, if recycling is to happen. To re-state a well-worn truism, recycling is more than simply collecting and sorting waste – it needs to be processed and sold into a stable market for a profit to the operator, as well.

The rest of this article looks at each of these elements in turn.

1. Legislative Framework

A legislative framework of reasonable sophistication is needed to ensure that adequate drivers are present and sufficient stability exists within emerging markets in commodities hitherto thought of as rubbish within any economy. Without laws and regulations which are all about raising recycling rates and minimising landfill, it may not be possible to raise the credibility of many recycling markets being long-term and profitable sufficiently for them to become so. Such faith that government will back recyclers, is needed to kick-start recycling companies to form, and keep it going for long enough for the theory to become self fulfilling; and it seems that passing laws to make it happen is the only way. Read the rest of this entry »

Recycling Facts – We’re Getting Better!

If you look at the recycling facts, you will see that since 1990, the United States has improved dramatically in their recycling activities. Recycling facts report that fifteen years ago, the U.S. recycled roughly fifteen percent of our waste materials, which today has doubled to thirty percent! The following recycling facts are both interesting and fun bits of information to increase your knowledge on the art of recycling.

Recycling Facts For Fun:

o Over 40 percent of soft drink bottles are recycled as well as 40 percent of paper products.

o More than 50 percent of steel products and appliances are recycled.

o 20 years ago in the U.S. there was one curbside recycling program in the U.S. There are now over 10,000 with 12,000 drop of recycling sites.

How Are Recycled Materials Collected?

There are four ways to recycle: drop-off recycling centers, curbside recycling, buy back centers, and deposit/refund centers (such as those for glass bottles.) Did you know there are now over 450 recycling material recovery facilities that buy recyclable material, sort it, clean it, and sell it again to companies who then use it in production? Read the rest of this entry »