Recycling means making something old into something new again. And recycling really does make a difference. Hauling recyclables to a plant, cleaning them, melting them down, and remolding them into new products does take energy, but far less than the energy used to haul all that garbage to faraway landfills and then use new raw materials from the Earth to manufacture brand-new products.
Another benefit of recycling: it reduces the amount of landfill space needed--which means more room for parks and forests. It also reduces water pollution by stopping the chemicals in our garbage from seeping into the underground freshwater supply. And it creates five times as many jobs as landfilling does.
What You Should Know
- Making
recycled paper uses 55%-75% less energy than making virgin paper,
making things out of recycled plastic uses 60%-75% less energy, and
making products out of recycled aluminum uses 95% less energy!
- In
the last 30 years, the U.S. recycling rate has quadrupled, but the
amount of trash we send to landfills has actually gone up--by 33%!
- Each year 200 million gallons of used motor oil are dumped on the ground, sent to landfills (after being thrown in the garbage), or poured down the drain by Americans--that's enough oil to fill 120 Exxon Valdezes! By contrast, if we recycled all that used oil, we would be able to import 1.3 million fewer barrels of oil a day.
Easy Things You Can Do
Recycle the usual. That means all of your paper (newspapers, cardboard, paperboard used for cereal and other dry food boxes, magazines, juice boxes, milk cartons, grocery bags, etc.), glass (bottles and jars of any color glass), steel and aluminum (soda, beer, and soup cans and their caps or lids), and plastic (jugs and bottles, some bags). Get multiple smaller garbage cans to make separating your recyclables easier. And don't forget to add paper recycling bins to your home office and other rooms where paperwork is done.Recycle the not-so-usual. It's very important to keep all of the following items from leaking hazardous chemicals into our landfills and leaching toxins into our groundwater. You can store these things in your closet or basement and simply make one trip every six months.
- Put your used motor oil into a clean milk jug, label it, and take it to your nearest oil change or auto parts store to be recycled.
- Give your old car tires to the store where you buy your new ones, and make sure they recycle them.
- Try to donate any wood you have or look up a local tree removal service and ask if they'll take it.
- Collect disposable batteries, compact fluorescent light bulbs (which contain mercury), oil-based paint, and expired medications (that's right, never dump medicines down the toilet or sink!) to your local household hazardous waste collection center.
Recycle your coolant. Did you know that chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) not only eat away at the ozone layer, but they're also potent greenhouse gases that cause global warming? Leaky home and car air conditioners (which contain CFC's in their coolant fluid) make up the largest single source of CFC's in the U.S. That's because a typical car air conditioner leaks the equivalent of 200 pounds of carbon dioxide every year.
- Ask
your service person to check for leaks and to capture and recycle the
coolant when you have your car tuned-up or your home air conditioner
serviced.
- By law, before throwing any appliance away that contains CFC's or coolants (refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.) you must have a professional capture and recyclethe toxic coolant. If the appliance is still in working condition, donate it. If not, call your Sanitation Department for help.
Recycle the big stuff. Steel can be remelted an infinite number times without degrading its quality, which is why the automobile recycling industry is doing so well ($8.2 billion in annual sales and producing enough recycled steel to manufacture 95% of all new cars). Donate your old car to a charity or sell it to a scrapyard.
When you're getting a new roof, find a local recycling center that handles construction debris for help. Nine million tons of asphalt roofing shingles are dumped into our nation's landfills each year, costing us $400 million in disposal costs. It's a waste, because these shingles can be recycled into road asphalt or new roofing shingles.
Identify your community recycling centers, and use them. Your community probably already provides a weekly curbside collection of recyclables or has designated drop-off or buyback centers. Ask what can be recycled, how, when, and if there are any rules and try to recycle everything they accept. If your community doesn't have a recycling program, ask that they start one!
Source: You Can Prevent Global Warming (and save money!) 51 Easy Ways, by Jeffrey Langholz, Ph.D., and Kelly Turner