What Are The Benefits Of Recycling?

Recycling is on just about everyone's mind nowadays. Most cities and towns offer recycling programs. But what is recycling and what are the benefits of recycling - as far as the environment is concerned?

Anytime you turn one product or the useful parts of a product into a new product you are recycling. Three of the primary reasons people recycle is to conserve energy, slow down on the consumption of resources, and to preserve space in landfills.

For example, if you can recycle even one plastic bottle you will protect the environment from the emissions produced by the oil that would be used to make a new bottle. In addition, because it can take anywhere from one hundred to one thousand years for a plastic bottle to decompose, you will save the amount of space it would take up in our rapidly filling landfills for other non-recyclable trash.

A lot of people don't realize that the plastic bottles that are used to hold their drinking water are made out of oil. The oil is the same base resource that's used to make gasoline. It's the oil that wars have been fought over. It's the oil that's in such high demand. And it is a limited resource.

Taking the concept of recycling plastic a step further, every ton of plastic that we recycle will save almost one ton of oil, the amount of water that an average person uses over a two month period, and the amount of energy that two people use in one year.

Approximately sixty percent of all the trash that is thrown away can actually be recycled. The most common types of products that can be recycled in a city recycling program are plastic, glass, cardboard, paper products, aluminum and glass.

But sometimes it is not very easy or convenient to recycle. As a matter of fact, a recent survey showed that ninety percent of the people surveyed said that they would recycle more than they are if it was easier to do.

Did you know that it takes four thousand years for glass to decompose? However glass can be recycled virtually indefinitely.

And the few moments it would take to put your glass spaghetti sauce jar, soda can, or daily newspaper into a recycling bin will slow down the depletion of our natural resources in addition to saving everyone on the planet years of environmental harm that would otherwise have been caused by the production of brand new products.

Our landfills are rapidly filling up. We are literally running out of space for our garbage. If we all do our part and recycle then we can help to preserve our world for our children and our children's children.


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