Benefits Of Recycling In The United States
Currently in America the average person throws away seven and a half pounds of garbage every day. Most of this garbage goes into to landfills, where it's compacted and buried. These lands fills have huge impacts on the environment; they cause pollution to the local environment by contaminating the groundwater and aquifers, contaminating the soil, and producing methane. One of the ways to help reduce this problem is by recycling.
When you recycle, you convert waste materials into reusable objects, this process prevents waste of potentially useful materials. Reusing these materials can have numerous benefits to the environment and the economy as well.
First of all when you recycle batteries, electronics, and computers then the amount of
toxic heavy metals that end up in landfills is reduced. These products contain lead, mercury, cadmium, and lithium, which all pose a significant threat to human health when they leech into the ground, the water supply, and the air. Recycling helps to reduce the pollution caused by this waste.
Also recycling reduces the usage of renewable resources like trees and water. If just half the amount of paper used in the United States each year were recycled, 705 million trees would remain standing. Having more trees results in cleaner air, since trees absorb odors and pollutant gases (nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulfur dioxide and ozone) and filter particulates out of the air by trapping them on their leaves and bark. Also turning trees into paper is the most water intensive Industrial process in the United States. Paper recycling mills nearly always use less water and they don't pollute the water nearly as much.
Recycling also helps curb global warming. When one ton of glass is recycled the results in energy savings are more than 300%. This in turn lowers carbon dioxide emissions by 3.46 tons.
Not only does the environment benefit from recycling but the economy benefits as well.
When you recycle, you convert waste materials into reusable objects, this process prevents waste of potentially useful materials. Reusing these materials can have numerous benefits to the environment and the economy as well.
First of all when you recycle batteries, electronics, and computers then the amount of
toxic heavy metals that end up in landfills is reduced. These products contain lead, mercury, cadmium, and lithium, which all pose a significant threat to human health when they leech into the ground, the water supply, and the air. Recycling helps to reduce the pollution caused by this waste.
Also recycling reduces the usage of renewable resources like trees and water. If just half the amount of paper used in the United States each year were recycled, 705 million trees would remain standing. Having more trees results in cleaner air, since trees absorb odors and pollutant gases (nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulfur dioxide and ozone) and filter particulates out of the air by trapping them on their leaves and bark. Also turning trees into paper is the most water intensive Industrial process in the United States. Paper recycling mills nearly always use less water and they don't pollute the water nearly as much.
Recycling also helps curb global warming. When one ton of glass is recycled the results in energy savings are more than 300%. This in turn lowers carbon dioxide emissions by 3.46 tons.
Not only does the environment benefit from recycling but the economy benefits as well.