The world has become more aware of how our everyday lives can affect the environment, and recycling has become a well-known process all around the world. We all know that it’s beneficial, but there are some things that recycling is capable of that not everyone knows about. For example, it actually helps our employment rate, because for every job created in the waste industry, four more are made in the recycling industry. Recycling helps so much more than our ecosystem, and recycling programs costs less than waste programs, due to the need for landfills, incinerators, and more.
Environmental Benefits
It’s no secret that recycling paper saves trees, contributing to cleaner air, but did you know that just one glass bottle provides enough energy to light a light bulb for four hours? There’s a lot more power to recycling than some people realize. For example, just one ton of paper saves 17 trees, and it may not sound like very many trees, but one ton of paper also is equivalent to 9 barrels of oil, and that’s a significant difference. However, recycling benefits much more than just the environment.
Economic Benefits
On top of all of the jobs that the recycling industry creates, it also is great for the economy. Using recycled materials to make products means that we save quite a bit of money, and there’s less waste, meaning that everything is used to it’s maximum potential. It costs twice as much to make new aluminum than it does to recycle it and reuse it, and since recycling saves so much on oil, it will help prevent the U.S. from depending so much on foreign trade to obtain it. Recycling also benefits the economy by generating revenue through material sales and the increase in the market for recyclable materials.
The Recycling Industry
In order for recycling to stay environmentally beneficial, America actually exports some of it’s recyclable materials to countries like China so that way our landfills can shrink faster and other countries can take part in reusing materials and have an alternative to cutting down forests or digging into more mines. Products that are used world-wide are made with recycled materials, like a majority of cars today are made with recycled steel.
Recycling has become a major part of daily life all around the world, and it’s a transforming task that will provide a clean environment and a great future for everyone.
