Recycling If We All Do Our Bit

The process of recycling involves many many individual processes depending on the material that is being recovered. This waste must go through many different stages before it can finally be re-used.
Due to advances in technology, recycling is becoming more and more efficient as well as cost effective. Increased awareness of what materials are in our products enable us manufacture them with recycling in mind.

The huge and obvious benefit to recycling is that we are putting less and less “rubbish” into landfill.
Increases in landfill tax have also promoted large waste producing companies to switch to more eco friendly ways, whether it be switching the energy supplier for the office building or ensuring any paper used in the office is from a sustainable source. Most people are familiar with aluminum, glass and steel being melted down to produce new raw materials. These are relatively simple process known ans mechanical recycling. This means that the material's chemical form remains the same, only heat is used to melt the material in billets ready for re-use. Chemical recycling is a lot more costly and involves “stripping” additives or unwanted chemicals from the waste. Magazines are an example of this, the glossy coating and inks must be removed before the paper can be re-pulped and cleaned to make rolls of new white paper. Until recently the technology to do this was so inefficient and costly that it was still easier to make new paper. However todays technology has thankfully swayed the balance, as we are seeing a lot more reclaimed paper in the market place.

Aside from the obvious savings on materials recycling has several other key benefits:

Recycling Helps Reduce Damage To The Environment:
Recycling cuts down the amount of waste we throw into landfill or burn in industrial incinerators . Both of these processes leach out huge volumes of dangerous chemicals into the surrounding landscape some causing immediate damage, others slowly effecting animal and human eco systems for generations as the toxins build up. By taking these products and reusing them, you effectively stop two things happening. The waste is not thrown away, preventing the leak of any harmful substances and secondly reducing the amount of energy spent on producing a new product. It is far more energy efficient to remelt almost aluminum from cans, cars, etc than it is to blast it from the ground and separate it from its ore element bauxite.
Recycling Save Resources:
As mentioned above by reusing materials you save on the cost of extracting the raw materials from the earth. Mining bauxite (aluminum's ore element), requires an entire fleet of diggers, cranes, lorrys, all of which require fossil fuels to run, then the workers, must be housed, paid, fed, their homes need heat and electricity, all of these knock on effects rack up a fairly huge energy bill. When we recycle eliminate the mining stage, which is unquestionably the most energy intensive procedure. Some elements are very limited. Precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum cannot be created so once we've mined it all, that is it, end of supply. It is key to recycle these materials allowing them to be put to use for as-long as possible.

Recycling Promotes Energy Efficiency:
Recycling by nature uses far less energy than extracting resources from the ground and separating them from their base elements. Most of the resources we use are locked, or hidden within ores, minerals, or in the case of oil require lengthy refinement before it can be of use. All this takes an enormous amount of energy. Just stop to think about oil for a moment. It is hundreds of miles out to sea, hundreds of meters below the surface. To get to it we must manufacture an oil rig, this must then be transported out to sea. Then we must have a crew on board to drill down to the oil field. The oil is then pumped ashore, then refined in huge plants. That is the short version but gives you an idea of just what sort of energy costs are involved. If we could reuse that old dirty pan of oil from your cars last service then we could skip the first 4 of those steps, saving a very considerable amount of energy. Also reducing the chance of oil spillage.
Recycling Helps Employment:
As burning rubbish or dumping it in a hole take very little effort, it seldom creates many jobs. Recycling however requires careful sorting and handling so will generate a lot more work for the local and nationwide community. This can begin with the collection of waste, sorting, processing, and re-manufacture, an entire chain of work is created. Just another benefit of recycling.

Recycling Builds Community
In areas where the community are not close, recycling can help to bring people together. Offering incentives from the council, such as if we recycle 100 tonnes per household per year the money saved with be spent on the town park for example. It gives people a sense of purpose and a cause to rally to. Organize a recycling day in local schools, where children will learn about recycling and how it can help provide them with a better quality of life in the future. They are the generation that will be see recycling as an everyday thing. Maybe in the future companies will face a huge tax for using “new” materials as apposed to recycled ones.
Greener Practices:
Recycling makes everyone think a little longer about the choices they make. If you think back 20 years ago, a skip hire company would put a skip on your drive you'd fill it up with anything you deemed “rubbish” and away it went almost certainly to landfill. Now you have a long list of items you cannot place in a skip, and any hazardous material must be removed correctly. A lot of skip hire companies are now recycling about 85% oAf a skips contents! This is an enormous number and over the course of a year will save a lot of energy.

Dont just think, “well what difference can I make?” granted alone you will make a small difference, but if every one is aware and everyone does there little bit, thats 6 billion odd people making a huge difference to our plant.