Why should we recycle?
Your recycling matters — a lot! There are plenty of reasons why we should recycle.
When you put an item in your recycling bin instead of your trash can, you give new life to a product you no longer need. Recycling also creates jobs, saves the Earth’s finite natural resources, fights climate change, keeps materials out of landfills, and strengthens U.S. manufacturing.
Of course, recycling has challenges, and it’s not the only thing we should be doing. Reducing our consumption, reusing or donating items, and only buying recyclable products are individual steps we can all take. Yet recycling remains essential. It’s key to creating a circular economy, a system where materials never become waste.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set a goal to increase the national recycling rate to 50% by 2030 — giving us all a target to work toward together. Whether you’re a recycling expert or interested in learning more, here are five reasons why recycling is important.
1. Recycling is essential for manufacturers
Recycling plays a vital role in manufacturing. Manufacturers use our recyclables to create new packaging and products in industries ranging from transportation to infrastructure, electronics, and healthcare.
Aluminum has a great recycling success story. Incredibly, of all the aluminum ever created, a whopping 75% remains in use today, recycled into items like beverage cans, car parts, and airplane structures. There’s a reason aluminum is one of the materials referred to as “infinitely recyclable.”
A typical soda can contains about 73% recycled content. When you toss your soda can in your recycling bin, you keep the cycle going!
Manufacturers also love recycling glass. It takes less energy and lower temperatures to melt recycled glass pieces than it does to process raw materials. By running their furnaces at lower temperatures, manufacturers can extend their working life.
How much do manufacturers love recycled glass? In NPR’s Planet Money video showing the journey from recycled bottles to new glass, one manufacturer shared that they use 150 tons of recycled glass daily! Your recycled glass is a treasure to manufacturers!
2. Recycling saves energy
Recycling often requires less energy than using raw materials to make new products. For example, processing recycled aluminum cans to make new ones takes 76% less energy than using bauxite, the raw material that makes aluminum.
Using recycled products versus raw materials also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 35% to 96%, according to the Recycled Materials Association. That’s good news in the battle against climate change.
3. Recycling conserves natural resources
Competition for the world’s limited natural resources continues to grow. There are only two sources for raw materials: either we take them from nature or we reclaim the raw materials we capture through recycling.
You already know we are #TeamRecycle. The conservation benefits of recycling are impressive. For example, for every ton of glass we recycle, we save more than a ton of raw materials, including 1,300 pounds of sand. This is vital, because after water, sand is the world’s most-used resource, and the United Nations has warned that countries must be cautious about how much of this finite material we use.
Without recycling, more trees are cut for paper, more oil is drilled for plastic and more bauxite, sand, and iron ore are mined to make aluminum, glass, and steel. In a world where we’re using more resources than the Earth can regenerate in a year, we need to reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as we can.
4. Recycling creates jobs
Recycling is important for the economy. The recycling industry is responsible for 681,000 jobs. That’s more than enough to hire every person who lives in Washington, D.C.! These jobs provide $37.8 billion in wages and generate $5.5 billion in tax revenues, making recycling a major economic driver.
5. Recycling reduces how much waste is sent to landfills
Your recycling gives new life to materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. Given the risks landfills pose to the environment and people living and working nearby, the more waste we can divert from landfills, the better.
Decomposing waste releases methane, a harmful gas that contributes to climate change. Landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, but your recycling reduces how much waste landfills have to support.
In 2018, Americans diverted 94 million tons of waste from landfills by recycling and composting. That reduced greenhouse gas emissions as much as if nearly 42 million cars — or all the cars in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Idaho combined — were taken off the road for a whole year.
Resources to support your recycling
Now that you know more reasons why recycling is important, we hope you’re inspired to recycle more at home, work, and on the go. Whether you’re new to recycling, need a refresher, or are an expert, we have resources for you. Review our Household Guide to learn everything you need to know about recycling in your community. Find your city below!
Chicago I Flagstaff I Highland Park, IL I Houston I Lafayette, CO I Los Angeles I Philadelphia I Santa Monica I Sedona I West Hollywood
Remember, please don't wishcycle. If you’re not sure if something is recyclable, please look it up in your community’s guide or leave it out. Don’t try to recycle items that are not recyclable, like plastic bags and plastic wrap. They only cause problems and will end up at the landfill anyway. And remember to only put clean and dry recyclables in your recycling bin.
