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9 benefits of recycling: How it helps more than just the environment

By Kelly Healey
By Kelly Healey

According to Conserve Energy Future, there are many benefits to recycling that benefit more than just our beautiful planet.

Reduce the size of landfills: One of the biggest reasons why recycling has been promoted is that it reduces the strain on the environment. By utilizing waste products in a constructive way, we can slowly decrease the size of our landfills. As the population grows, it will become difficult for landfills to hold so much trash, which can cause health problems.
Conserve natural resources: Scrap cars, old bottles, junk mail and used rubber tires are becoming common features of our landfills. The products might seem endless, but the resources required to make them are finishing off quickly. Recycling allows the junk items to be reused so that new resources do not have to be exploited.
More employment opportunities: Recycling is a huge industry. After you do the basic sorting and deposit your trash for recycling, it must be sorted and shipped to the right places. This is done by thousands of workers, who are newly employed by the growing industry.
Offers cash benefits: Most governments have policies in place that give financial benefits to those who recycle. People who take aluminum cans or glass bottles to recycling plants get a cash benefit in return.
Saves money: Recycling counts when the economy does not have to pay for planting more forests, mining iron ore or purchasing fossil fuels from other countries.
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions: When you recycle products, you tend to save energy which results in less greenhouse gas emissions and that cuts down the number of pollutants that are released into the environment.
Saves energy: When you recycle aluminum cans, you can save 95% of the energy required to produce those cans from raw materials. Energy saved from recycling one glass bottle is enough to light a bulb for four hours.
Bring different groups and communities together: Recycling can bring a community together, whether it is by picking up trash from the roads or collecting waste materials to raise money for schools and colleges.
Prevents loss of biodiversity: Less raw material is needed when you engage yourself in recycling products. The beauty of recycling is that it will help you to conserve resources and prevents loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and rain forests.

Source: Conserve Energy Future

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