San Jose: ESD Extra: 5 Reasons to Recycle — And How You Can Recycle Right

What if you knew there was something you could do every day that's free, easy to do, and creates jobs while saving money, energy and water? Actually, there is: Recycling! Check out these 5 reasons why we should all be recycling, every chance we get.

Recycling keeps trash out of the landfill According to the EPA, in the U.S. we are currently able to keep 35 percent of our trash out of landfills and incinerators through recycling and composting. In California, we manage to keep 44 percent of our trash out of the landfill. That's a good start, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. It's important to keep as much material out of the landfill as possible because all items that we produce are made from valuable and limited resources. We want to hang onto as much of it as we can for future use.

Recycling reduces our need for new raw materials Extracting raw materials from the environment is expensive. It also uses up a lot of water and energy. When we recycle, we extract less, which conserves many of our precious (and finite!) natural resources, including trees, water, oil and metals. The more we recycle, the more we protect our resources!

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Recycling conserves energy Recycling saves a lot of energy. Every year, recyclers across the country save the same amount of energy it would take to power 14 million homes for a full year. That's the equivalent of turning off the power for one out of every 10 homes for an entire year.

Recycling creates jobs In the U.S., recycling and reuse activities provide 757,000 jobs and produce $36 billion in wages each year. Choosing to recycle isn't just good for the environment, it's good for the economy too.

Recycling reduces pollution The process of extracting raw materials can produce a lot of pollution. Because more recycling means less extraction, it also means less pollution. Even better, when we recycle more, we send less material to landfills. Material decaying in landfills often emits methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times as potent as carbon dioxide, so the less of that, the better!

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How can you recycle correctly?
It's important to recycle correctly! Items that don't belong in the recycling can damage sorting machinery, causing expensive delays. Also, when the wrong materials get mixed in with the right ones (known as "contamination" in the recycling world), it reduces the value of other recyclables that were sorted correctly.

So how can you find out how to recycle correctly? By using our brand new, searchable Recycling Guide. Simply look up any item in our Recycling Guide, and you'll find tips on recycling, reusing and reducing that item.

Happy recycling!

(Post courtesy of SanJoseRecycles.org)

Filed Under: Government, City

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