7 benefits of recycling

Recycling has become an important part of our daily life. In fact, the phrase ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ has been taught to children all over the world in hopes of creating a clean environment.

There are many environmental benefits that recycling brings, from the individual level to businesses, industries and even entire countries. Here’s a reminder of why recycling is such a good thing for you and the planet.

Helps protect the environment 

The manufacturing of new materials from raw materials requires extracting that is mining, quarrying and logging, and also refining and processing of raw materials, all of which create substantial air and water pollution.

Recycling reduces the need for all these as manufacturers do not have to look for new materials as they can reuse old ones to create new ones. It not only saves energy but also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to tackle climate change. 

Reduces pollution 

Water, air and soil pollution is a recognized worldwide hazard from industrial wastes such as chemicals and plastics. Recycling these materials helps our environment a lot. Instead of recklessly throwing away your waste, it is useful to consider whether it can be used elsewhere.

Reduces the size of landfills

By utilizing waste products in a constructive way, we can slowly decrease the size of our landfills. As the population grows, it will become difficult for the landfills to hold so much trash. When this happens, our cities and beautiful landscapes will face pollution, poisoning and many health problems. Recycling is a huge step towards preventing this.

Reduces greenhouse gas emissions

When you recycle products, you tend to save energy, which results in less greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases are primarily responsible for an increase in global warming.

Protects natural resources

Earth’s natural resources are limited, and some are very scarce. With these in mind, recycling paper and wood saves trees and forests. Recycling plastic means producing less new plastic, which is certainly a good thing, especially since plastics are often made from fossil fuel hydrocarbons. Recycling metals means less need for expensive and harmful mining and extraction of new metal ores. Recycling glass reduces the need to use new raw materials like sand, hard to believe, but the availability of some types of sand is starting to decline worldwide.

Protects ecosystems and wildlife

Recycling reduces the need to grow, harvest or extract new raw materials from the Earth. If our plastic waste is not safely recycled, it can contaminate shorelines and waterways and become a problem for everyone.

Saves energy

Making products from recycled materials requires less energy than making them from new raw materials. Sometimes it’s a huge difference in energy. For example: making paper from pulped recycled paper uses 40% less energy than making it from virgin wood fibres.