Is recycling worthwhile?

Recycling is one of the best environmental success stories of the late 20th century. Recycling, which includes composting, diverted over 72 million tons of material away from landfills and incinerators in 2003, up from 34 million tons in 1990—doubling in just 10 years. Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. As a matter of fact, collecting recyclable materials is just the first step in a series of actions that generate a host of financial, environmental, and societal returns. There are several key benefits to recycling.

Recycling:

• Protects and expands US manufacturing jobs and increases US competitiveness in the global marketplace.
• Reduces the need for landfilling and incineration.
• Saves energy and prevents pollution caused by the extraction and processing of virgin materials and the manufacture of products using virgin materials.
• Decreases emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.
• Conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals.
• Helps sustain the environment for future generations.

Recycling not only makes sense from an environmental standpoint, but also makes good financial sense. For example, creating aluminum cans from recycled aluminum is far less energy-intensive, and less costly, than mining the raw materials and manufacturing new cans from scratch.

Because recycling is clearly good for human health, the nation's economy, and the environment, many people wonder why the federal government does not simply mandate recycling. The primary reason is that recycling is a local issue—the success and viability of recycling depends on a community's resources and structure. A community must consider the costs of a recycling program, as well as the availability of markets for its recovered materials. In some areas, not enough resources exist to make recycling an economically feasible option. State governments can assess local conditions and set appropriate recycling mandates.

Source: EPA

What costs my community more—recycling or throwing trash away?

The answer to this question will vary depending on where you live, and comparing recycling program and waste disposal costs is a complex undertaking. Disposal fees for landfills, waste transfer stations, and incinerators vary across the country, but in many areas, particularly on the heavily populated East Coast, they are significant expenses. Costs and returns for recycling programs also vary greatly, depending on the local resources and demand for the recovered materials.

Recycling does cost money, but so does waste disposal. Communities must pay to collect trash and manage a landfill or incinerator and so also should expect to pay for recycling. Assessing how recycling will impact your community requires a full appraisal of the environmental and economic benefits and costs of recycling, as compared to the one-way consumption of resources from disposing of used products and packaging in landfills and incinerators. Analyzing all of these factors together will help you determine if recycling is more cost effective in your community.

Source: EPA

If there is plenty of landfill space, then why should I recycle?

Recycling offers a host of environmental, economic, and societal benefits. While landfill space is plentiful on the national level, some areas of the United States, particularly the heavily populated East Coast, have less landfill capacity and higher landfill costs.

Communities can make money and avoid high disposal costs by selling certain recyclable materials. Markets for recovered materials fluctuate, however—as markets do for all commodities—depending on a variety of economic conditions.

A report released by the National Recycling Coalition at the end of 2001 offers perhaps the most compelling evidence of how and why recycling makes good economic sense. Simply put, recycling creates jobs and generates valuable revenue for the United States. According to The U.S. Recycling Economic Information Study, more than 56,000 recycling and reuse establishments in the United States employ approximately 1.1 million people, generate an annual payroll of $37 billion, and gross $236 billion in annual revenues. According to the report, the number of workers in the recycling industry is comparable to the automobile and truck manufacturing industry and is significantly larger than mining and waste management and disposal industries. In addition, wages for workers in the recycling industry are notably higher than the national average for all industries, according to the report.

Source: EPA

How does recycling save energy?

Harvesting, extracting, and processing the raw materials used to manufacture new products is an energy-intensive activity. Reducing or nearly eliminating the need for these processes, therefore, achieves huge savings in energy. Recycling aluminum cans, for example, saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from its virgin source, bauxite. The amount of energy saved differs by material, but almost all recycling processes achieve significant energy savings compared to production using virgin materials.

In 2000, recycling resulted in an annual energy savings of at least 660 trillion BTUs, which equals the amount of energy used in 6 million households annually. In 2005, recycling is conservatively projected to save 900 trillion BTUs, equal to the annual energy use of 9 million households.

For more information on recycling and energy reduction, check out the EPA brochure Puzzled About Recycling's Value? Look Beyond the Bin (PDF) (16 pp, 317K, about PDF).

A white paper on the energy benefits of waste management is available at EPA's Climate and Waste Web site, under the "Publications" link.

Source: EPA

What effects do waste prevention and recycling have on global warming?

Everyone knows that reducing waste is good for the environment because it conserves natural resources. What many people don't know is that solid waste reduction and recycling also have an impact on global climate change.

The manufacture, distribution, and use of products—as well as management of the resulting waste—all result in greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the upper atmosphere, occur naturally and help create climates that sustain life on our planet. Increased concentrations of these gases can contribute to rising global temperatures, sea level changes, and other climate changes.

Waste prevention and recycling—jointly referred to as waste reduction—help us better manage the solid waste we generate. But reducing waste is a potent strategy for reducing greenhouse gases because it can:

Reduce emissions from energy consumption. Recycling saves energy. Manufacturing goods from recycled materials typically requires less energy than producing goods from virgin materials. When people reuse goods or when products are made with less material, less energy is needed to extract, transport, and process raw materials and to manufacture products. When energy demand decreases, fewer fossil fuels are burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere.

Reduce emissions from incinerators. Recycling and waste prevention divert materials from incinerators and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions from waste combustion.

Reduce methane emissions from landfills. Waste prevention and recycling (including composting) divert organic wastes from landfills, reducing the methane that would be released if these materials decomposed in a landfill.

Increase storage of carbon in forests. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in wood in a process called "carbon sequestration." Waste prevention and recycling paper products allows more trees to remain standing in the forest, where they can continue to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Source: EPA

What materials are most commonly recycled in the United States through collection programs?

U.S. recycling rates for commonly recycled consumer goods in 2006 are listed below:

• Newspapers: 87.9%
• Corrugated Cardboard Boxes: 72.0%
• Steel Cans: 62.9%
• Yard Trimmings: 62.0%
• Aluminum Beer and Soft Drink Cans: 45.1%
• Magazines: 40.5%
• Tires: 34.9%
• Plastic HDPE Milk and Water Bottles: 31.0%
• Plastic Soft Drink Bottles: 30.9%
• Glass Containers: 25.3%

Source: EPA

What product is taking up the most space in U.S. landfills?

The item most frequently encountered in landfills is plain old paper—on average, it accounts for more than 40 percent of a landfill's contents. This proportion has held steady for decades and in some landfills has actually risen. Newspapers alone can take up as much as 13 percent of the space in U.S. landfills.

Organic materials, including paper, do not easily biodegrade once they are disposed of in a landfill. Paper is many times more resistant to deterioration when compacted in a landfill than when it is in open contact with the atmosphere. Research by William Rathje, who runs the Garbage Project , has shown that, when excavated from a landfill, newspapers from the 1960s can be intact and readable.

Source: EPA

What materials are not safe to throw in my trash?

Chances are, there are certain items or products in your house that you should not throw out in the trash. Many common household items, such as paint, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides, contain hazardous components. Leftover portions of these products are called household hazardous waste (HHW). These products, if mishandled, can be dangerous to human health and the environment.

Certain types of HHW can cause physical injury to sanitation workers, contaminate septic tanks or wastewater treatment systems if poured down drains or toilets, and present hazards to children and pets if left around the house. Some communities have special programs that allow residents to dispose of HHW separately. Others allow disposal of properly prepared HHW in trash, particularly those areas that do not yet have special HHW collection programs in place. Call your local Department of Sanitation or Department of Public Works for instructions on proper disposal. Follow their instructions and also read product labels for disposal directions to reduce the risk of products exploding, igniting, leaking, mixing with other chemicals, or posing other hazards on the way to a disposal facility. Even empty containers that used to contain HHW can pose hazards because of the residual chemicals inside.

Source: EPA