What Impact Does Recycling Have on the Environment?

You’ve probably been told about recycling for years now. Everywhere you go, you are told to either recycle your bottles, plastic bags, or even some metals or wooden items. But why?

The truth is, over the past century, the world has changed. We’ve taken out many natural resources that were keeping this planet together.

Now we have to fight global warming, desertification and even the extinction of various animals. And since we can not undo what we have done, recycling has opened up a pathway to ensure that we do not continue with that trend.

So, you must be wondering what impact does recycling have on the environment? Well, below are five implications that recycling has on the environment.

1. Conserves Natural resources.

Natural resources such as wood, metal, glass, and even water, stand to benefit a lot if they are recycled. When a paper is recycled, there will be less need for trees to be cut down, and thus the forests will be saved.

Also, by recycling plastic bags and bottles or even converting them into useful products, plants and animals won’t have to risk suffocation, and thus the environment is improved. It will also result in less pollution of the soil and air if burned.

Even the recycling of water on both industrial and domestic levels ensures that the resultant water emitted after use is free from toxic wastes that end up in the sea and kill marine animals and plants.

2. Decreases pollution

Industries are known to produce very toxic by-products. Since the wastes are gaseous, they are responsible for most of the air pollution we experience today.

Therefore, if these industries decide to recycle their by-products, they can produce clean gases and thus help cut down on the greenhouse gases emission. They also stand to increase their earnings from the new by-products of their waste.

In homes, instead of disposing of your used cooking oils in the sewer pipes, you can give them to used oil collection firms such as MBP.

These companies will recycle this oil and convert it biodiesel, which is a clean source of energy. Biodiesel can be used by vehicles and machines to reduce air pollution.

3. Saves energy

For manufacturing industries, a lot of energy is used in creating a product from its raw materials. However, by recycling some of the by-products, the energy consumed to create the product will significantly reduce.

When making paper, using recycled paper uses almost half of the energy used to create the paper from scratch. Therefore, by recycling, you will be able to save more power, more time, and even save on the resources you would have used.

Therefore, if the energy used reduces, the cost of the product will also decrease. This means that the cost of products will reduce and hence cut down on the budget for our monthly bills.

4. Reduction in Landfill waste

Whenever we dump our waste in landfills, the environment greatly suffers. With many plastics and even organic wastes buried in the heap of garbage, many reusable items go to waste.

The soil will also get polluted as the waste will begin leaching toxic substances. In case there’s a water body around it is also bound to get poisoned.

Furthermore, landfills destroy the beauty of the environment and tend to take up a lot of the space that could be used for productive activities.

By recycling materials, the number of landfills will significantly reduce.

5. Reduction in Incinerations

Incineration or burning of waste products has for a long time, resulted in both air and soil pollution. This is because most of the products burned, release harmful gases to the environment.

Burning also affects the plants and bushes nearby, thus leaving the land bare and unproductive.

Therefore, by recycling more products, we reduce the number of products to be incinerated.

Conclusion

Recycling products have so many other impacts on the environment. By practicing it, we will be able to solve most of the problems that are now threatening our ecosystem.

Therefore, since recycling has proven to have a powerful impact on the environment, the time has come for us to embrace it whole-heartedly.