Increased heat, drought and insect outbreaks, all linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns.

Human health is vulnerable to climate change. The changing environment is expected to cause more heat stress, an increase in waterborne diseases, poor air quality, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Extreme weather events can compound many of these health threats.

Recycle More. Recycling helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing energy consumption. Using recycled materials to make new products reduces the need for virgin materials. This avoids greenhouse gas emissions that would result from extracting or mining virgin materials.

By reducing air and water pollution and saving energy, recycling offers an important environmental benefit: it reduces emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons, that contribute to global climate change.

Recycling prevents the emissions of many greenhouse gases and water pollutants, and saves energy. Using recovered material generates less solid waste. Recycling helps to reduce the pollution caused by the extraction and processing of virgin materials.

Why recycling isn’t working in the U.S. Many recyclables become contaminated when items are placed in the wrong bin, or when a dirty food container gets into the recycling bin. Contamination can prevent large batches of material from being recycled. Other materials can’t be processed in certain facilities.

Recycling not only saves energy and reduces landfill waste, the recycling industry creates jobs and helps our local economy. The study, “More Jobs, Less Pollution” shows that a 75% national recycling rate would create nearly 2.3 million jobs while reducing pollution by 2030.

Recycling reduces our need for new raw materials. 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!

Benefits of Recycling

• Reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators.
• Conserves natural resources such as timber, water and minerals.
• Increases economic security by tapping a domestic source of materials.
• Prevents pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials.
• Saves energy.

Recycling is a critical part of the U.S. economy – contributing to jobs, wages and government tax revenue. Economic and community benefits include increasing economic security by tapping a domestic source of materials, supporting American manufacturing and creating jobs in the recycling and manufacturing industries.

The Pros and Cons of Recycling

• Pro 1: There’s an environmental benefit.
• Pro 2: Recycling creates jobs.
• Pro 3: Recycling raises overall environmental consciousness.
• Pro 4: Recycling reduces the energy used to manufacture goods.
• Con 1: Recycling takes energy, too.
• Con 2: Recycling can lead to pollution.
• Con 3: Recycling is costly.

When you choose to recycle your discards, jobs are created in:

• Collecting, processing and preparing materials.
• Making new products from recycled materials (manufacturing).
• Reuse and remanufacturing.

Here’s how failing to recycle harms the planet:

• Landfills Fill Up Faster. When recyclable items are tossed into the garbage instead of the recycling, they eventually end up in landfills.
• Greenhouse Gases Are Released.
• Toxins Can Leach Into Soil and Groundwater.
• New Resources Are Required.

Some of the many benefits of recycling are the prevention of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and supporting local economies by creating jobs and tax revenue. Recycling programs can also help to improve water and air quality and are building blocks for sustainable growing communities.

The world would look a lot different if everyone recycled. Most likely, it would be cleaner and make more use of available resources. Landfills would shrink tremendously. Recycling plants would be an epicenter of activity.

Tips: Top Ten Ways to Recycle

• Buy recycled paper and print on both sides.
• Make recycling bins readily available.
• Recycle your empty ink and toner cartridges.
• Buy remanufactured ink and toner cartridges.
• Recycle old newspapers laying around the office.
• Look for the recycled option in all the products you buy.
• Buy rechargeable batteries.

Reduces Pollution Across Ecosystems During the manufacturing of plastics, petroleum is burnt. This produces huge amount of greenhouse gases. Recycling plastic instead of manufacturing it from scratch hence indirectly reduces emission of hazardous greenhouse gases.

The climate implications of plastic. Plastic not only poses an immense pollution problem—it also exacerbates climate change. The CIEL report warns that the greenhouse gas emissions from plastic jeopardize our ability to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5˚C.

The key problem, according to the recyclers, is competition from virgin plastic. In recent years, the price of oil has fallen rapidly, making it much cheaper to produce than to mess around with the recycled stuff.