Why Recycle?

There are 2 main reasons for recycling:

1) Reducing Landfill. Finding sufficient places to dump all the waste we humans create is becoming increasingly difficult. We can't go on this way for much longer unless we're prepared to sacrifice vast areas of the countryside. This has become such a big problem in Europe that the EU has actually brought in legislation to force it's population to recycle a lot more. Hefty fines await those local authorities that don't meet their targets.

By the way, landfill produces huge quantities of methane (another greenhouse gas) as it decomposes, adding to the global warming problem. We can each save the equivalent of around 100kg of carbon dioxide per year by recycling all cardboard and composting all our garden and food waste.

2) Saves Energy and therefore CO2 emissions. Recycling paper uses between 40% and 64% less energy than paper made from unrecycled wood pulp.

Recycling glass uses about 40% less energy than making glass from raw materials (sand, lime and soda), as the furnaces don't need so much energy.

Recycling aluminium cans uses just 5% of the energy used to produce them the traditional way!

Recycling steel saves 80% of the carbon emissions produced when making steel from iron ore.

On average, a person who recycles nothing produces 1.5 tonnes a year more CO2 than one who recycles everything.