Question: Why Should I Recycle?
Answer: You Can Make a Difference!Many individuals feel they can't have an impact on environmental problems due to their complexity. Issues like global warming, hazardous waste, loss of rain forests, endangered species, acid rain, the ozone layer and our waste disposal crisis can feel huge and out of our control. But there's good news, there are some things that individuals can control. Our waste reduction and recycling efforts can make a difference - especially within our province.
Recycling Saves Our Environment
Recycling provides industry with an environmentally preferable source of materials: Most people know that recycling plays an important role in managing the garbage generated in homes and businesses, and that it reduces the reliance on landfills and incinerators. But recycling is far more than a local material management strategy; it is also an important strategy for reducing the environmental impacts of industrial production. Supplying industry with recycled materials rather than virgin resources extracted from forests and mines is environmentally preferable because it saves energy, reduces emissions of greenhouse gases, and other dangerous air and water pollutants, and because it conserves scarce natural resources.
Greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by recycling: By reducing the amount of energy used by industry, recycling also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps stem the dangers of global climate change. This reduction occurs because much of the energy used in industrial processes and in transportation involves burning fossil fuels like gasoline, diesel and coal - the most important sources of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions into the environment.
Recycling Saves Energy Recycling saves energy: Energy savings may be the most important environmental benefit of recycling, because using energy requires the consumption of scarce fossil fuels and involves emissions of numerous air and water pollutants. The steps in supplying materials to industry (including collection, processing and transportation) typically use less energy than the steps in supplying virgin materials to industry (including extraction, refinement, transportation and processing). But most energy savings associated with recycling accrue at least once.
- It takes 95% less energy to recycle aluminum than it does to make it from raw materials. Making recycled steel saves 60%, recycled newspaper 40%, recycled plastic 70%, and recycled glass 40%.
- Every pound of steel recycled saves 5,450 BTUs of energy, enough to light a 60-watt bulb for over 26 hours. Recycling just one can saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb for 3.5 hours.
Recycling Saves Natural Resources
Recycling conserves natural resources: Recycling is an important strategy in conserving the world's scarce natural resources. Recycling reduces the need for landfills and other disposal facilities, thereby allowing local lands to be used in more environmentally preferable ways. And, by substituting scrap materials for the use of trees, metal ores, minerals, oil and other virgin materials, recycling reduces the pressure to expand forestry and mining production.
- When one ton of steel is recycled, 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone are conserved.
- By recycling 1,205,000 tons of scrap metal, recycling efforts reduce the need for virgin materials by approximately 130,000 tons of limestone, 946,500 tons of iron ore, 530,000 tons of coal, 290,000 tons of sand, 91,500 tons of soda ash and 35,500 tons of feldspar.
- Recycling 1,100,800 tons of all types of paper saves approximately 2790625 cubic meters of landfill space.
These are just some of the reasons we should all recycle. Recycling saves resources and thus saves valuable land for proper growth. Gives us healthier air, cleaner water and a overall better place to live and grow. If your family, workplace and or schools don't currently recycle, start the process yourself or ask someone for help to do so. Let's all try and make a difference .
Crazyskates, over and out...
