Importance of Recycling and Why Should We Recycle

Recycling is important in today’s world if we want to leave this planet for our future generations. It is good for the environment since we are making new products from the old products which are of no use to us. Recycling begins at home. If you are not throwing away any of your old products and instead utilizing it for something new, then you are actually recycling.

When you think of recycling, you should really think about the whole idea; reduce, reuse and recycle. We’ve been careless up to this point with the way we’ve treated the Earth, and it’s time to change, not just the way we do things but the way we think.

Recycling, packaging, businesses are changing all of those things because that’s what consumers want

~ Jerry Greenfield, Co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), defines recycling as,

“Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products. Recycling can benefit your community and the environment.”

We Should Recycle Because Recycling:

  • Helps in keeping the environment clean
  • Reduces the amount of waste produced
  • Helps in the conservation of many non-renewable resources
  • Saves energy and thus helps in avoiding energy crisis
  • Prevents landfills and incinerators from getting extremely overloaded
  • Saves and protects the economy of a household
  • Helps in creating new job opportunities
  • Restrains the hunt for raw materials

Recycling is good for the environment; in a sense, we are using old and waste products that are of no use and then converting them back to the same new products. Since we are saving resources and are sending less trash to the landfills, it helps in reducing air and water pollution.

With each passing day, the population is increasing. With that, the quantity of waste so produced is also increasing manifolds. The more the waste production, the more is the amount of space required to dump these wastes. Now, it must be remembered that the space available on earth is very limited, and it is obviously up to us to use it judiciously.

The ever-growing population needs space to live and also to grow what they eat by means of agriculture. If all this space were to be taken up by dumpsters and landfills, the survival of humankind on this planet would be really difficult. Recycling solves this problem because, with recycling, a lesser amount of wastes is dumped, and some valuable space is saved.

In recent years, incinerators are being used extensively to reduce the amount of waste produced. Incinerators burn the wastes that it takes up lesser space when being disposed of. But what are these incinerators powered with? Also referred to as the thermal treatment of wastes, incinerators use up our precious, non-renewable fossil fuels to burn wastes into ashes.

We are producing and losing precious energy just for the sake of a little less space used up by waste. Not only that, but we are also causing severe air pollution as well.

Energy saving is important if we are to reduce the future effects of global warming. If we recycle one aluminum can, we can save enough energy to run a TV for around 3 hours. This will obviously depend on the energy consumption of your TV, but it gives you a great idea as to just how much energy can be saved during the process of recycling products.

It is believed that (the U.S.) cut approximately 40 million newspapers each day, leading to the equivalent of about half a million trees ending in landfills every week. We’ve been careless up to this point with the way we’ve treated the Earth, and it’s time to change, not just the way we do things but the way we think. Paper, plastic, glass, aluminum cans are examples of some products that are recycled in large quantities.

Recycling serves 2 purposes:

First, it avoids landfills and helps in reducing air and water pollution, and

Secondly, valuable materials like aluminum cans, plastic and glass are reused in other forms and not wasted.

Be mindful of what you do, pay attention to the items you buy and always check yourself to see if you really need it or if it comes in a package with less waste. We can all do our part, and we will make a huge difference.

Saving energy also helps us in preventing the looming energy crisis that threatens to harm our socio-economic conditions. It is detrimental to the growth of any country. Recycling helps in preventing all these crises. It not only saves energy and promotes the judicious use of our precious fossil fuels, but it also promotes international socio-political peace.

It is the energy crisis that regulates fuel prices. The lesser the crisis, the more viable is the price of fuel. It ensures the affordability of fuels. Thus in every possible way, recycling is the smartest choice that you could make with your wastes.

Besides all this, there are two very important things that recycling helps in. Firstly, it helps maintain the economy of a household. Secondly, recycling helps up creating new job opportunities.

Recycling means you have to buy less. For example, you have a glass bottle that you have recycled into a glass pot of some sort. The glass, which once made the bottle, now makes a pot. You could get it for no or almost negligible costs. Either way, it was much cheaper than getting a new pot. Thus, recycling manages your economy well.

The fact that recycling helps in creating new job opportunities is not a surprise at all. In order to run a recycling unit, it is necessary that there must be at least a few workers, at least one for every step of the way. This way, many people would get employed. Thus, recycling not only helps nature, but it also helps people by providing them with a viable means of livelihood.

According to the Recycling Economic Information (REI) Study, in a single year, recycling created 757,000 jobs, which account for $36.6 billion in wages. For every 1000 tons of waste recycled, 1.57 jobs are created, and $76,000 wages are made.

When you think of recycling, you should really think about the whole idea; reduce, reuse and recycle. Think about it; if you don’t need it, don’t get it. If you have to get it, get something that can be used again and if you get something that needs to be recycled by the professionals, put it in the recycle bin. Conservation is an important part of recycling issue. When you produce less garbage, it helps in reducing landfills and also helps in giving the land back to nature.

What We People Can Do?

There are handful number of things that you could do to save this planet.

1. Throw away all the garbage in your house that is of no use to you, or you think you can’t utilize it in some other way. If you don’t have these boxes, you can easily purchase a suitable container for each recyclable product (e.g., paper, plastic, and glass), and then take these down to your local recycling center.

2. Try to avoid the use of plastic bags and plastic paper as much as possible. They not only pollute the environment but also helps in filling landfills. Also, when you shop, try to look out for the products that have the least packaging. Every million dollars are spent only on the packaging of these products, which ultimately go to the garbage sites.

3. Buying recycled products could provide the recycling industry with a huge boost. Buying recycled paper or glass products not only helps in reducing the amount of waste being produced, but it also helps in promoting the recycling industry.

4. It is essential that we take some steps all by ourselves without being dependent on anybody else. We could carry the recyclable wastes all by ourselves to the nearest recycling center. Everyone needs to do their bit in making recycling a success.

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About Rinkesh

A true environmentalist by heart ❤️. Founded Conserve Energy Future with the sole motto of providing helpful information related to our rapidly depleting environment. Unless you strongly believe in Elon Musk‘s idea of making Mars as another habitable planet, do remember that there really is no 'Planet B' in this whole universe.