| There are many direct and indirect benefits | | | | remanufactured into new products using just 5% of |
| associated with recycling. Virtually all of them will | | | | the energy that is needed when starting from |
| come under one of the big three categories: | | | | scratch. Likewise paper products can be |
| environmental, economic and energy. I like to call | | | | manufactured from recycled paper with a 70% |
| these the 3 E`s of recycling. Let`s take a closer at | | | | energy savings over paper made from trees. |
| each one. | | | | Economic Benefits of Recycling |
| Environmental Benefits of Recycling | | | | Recycling creates a lot of jobs. The State of |
| Reducing the amount of garbage that ends up in | | | | Pennsylvania reports over 52,000 recycling jobs with |
| landfills every day is a direct and very obvious | | | | an annual payroll of $2.2 billion dollars. That's a lot of |
| recycling benefit. Landfills take up a lot of space and | | | | money and clearly many families are deriving a living |
| produce methane gas which contributes to the | | | | by their involvement in this industry. That's only one |
| greenhouse effect. Anything we can do to lessen the | | | | state, but do the math - recycling is a major |
| amount of material going to landfills is definitely a | | | | employer in the economy and it's a growth industry. |
| good thing. According to the National Recycling | | | | In fact the U.S. recycling industry is estimated to |
| Coalition, solid waste recycling in the United States | | | | employ 1.1 million people and be more than $236 billion |
| was responsible for preventing 32.9 million metric tons | | | | annually. Think of it this way - burning 10,000 tons of |
| of carbon equivalents being released into the | | | | garbage takes one person, while it takes six people |
| atmosphere in the year 2000. Recycling materials also | | | | to process it at the landfill. However recycling that |
| reduces the amount of water pollution created during | | | | same amount of waste creates about 35 jobs! |
| manufacturing as compared to raw material | | | | So the next time you have to crush those milk |
| processing. | | | | cartons and flatten the cereal boxes keep these |
| Energy Benefits | | | | recycling benefits in mind and know what a good |
| Manufacturing goods from raw materials requires a | | | | thing you are doing. It`s a great feeling to be putting |
| huge amount of energy. Using recycled materials | | | | out one garbage can each week for our family of |
| significantly reduces energy consumption at the | | | | five instead of the two cans that used to be there. |
| manufacturing level. Recycled aluminum cans are | | | | |