Recycling Blog From ITSource of Wichita, Kansas

The Economic Impact of Recycling

Recycling has a variety of economic impacts. For the companies that buy used goods, recycle them, and resell new products, recycling is the source of all their income. For cities in densely populated areas that have to pay by the ton for their landfill usage, recycling can shave millions of dollars off municipal budgets.

The recycling industry can have an even broader impact. Economic analysis shows that recycling can generate three times as much revenue per ton as landfill disposal and almost six times as many jobs. In the St. Louis area, recycling generates an estimated 16,000 jobs and well more than $4 billion in annual revenue [source: Essential Guide].

Recycling generates significant economic benefits for communities. In fact, the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive estimates that recycling and remanufacturing industries account for approximately one million manufacturing jobs and more than $100 billion in revenue. Recycling employs low-, medium-, and highly-skilled workers in a variety of jobs from materials handling and processing to high-quality product manufacturing. The drive for efficient handling and use of recycled materials spurs innovation, a key to long-term economic growth. Investments in recycling equipment and the companies themselves also filter through the economy and contribute to economic growth.

Equally important are the social and environmental benefits of recycling. Recycling promotes the sustainable use of our natural resources. Working together, recycling activities around the country promote community development while reducing the need for new landfills, preventing pollution, saving energy, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do something I can do.

—Helen Keller

Recycling involves collecting, sorting, and processing waste material and remanufacturing them into new products. Today, much of the aluminum, glass, paper, and steel used in packaging is already recycled. Half the nation’s aluminum cans are made from recycled aluminum, with one-quarter of the raw fibers used in the paper industry made from recycled paper products. Glass and steel containers can be recycled again and again.

The recycling of aluminum and steel cans, cardboard, glass, newspapers, and certain plastics is a growing industry. Glass containers, office paper, laundry detergent bottles, steel cans, paper packaging, cardboard boxes, and aluminum cans are easily recyclable materials that get thrown away every day.

Recyclables kept separate from your household waste can be collected at recycling programs. Collected materials are further sorted and processed for sale to manufacturers.

Money earned from the sale of recyclable materials can benefit the individual recycler or help communities and companies offset operating costs. Recycling even allows some communities to reduce waste disposal costs.

Society’s energy consumption is also reduced by recycling. For example, it requires less energy to make a new glass bottle from a recycled one because recycled glass melts at a lower temperature than the raw materials. Recycling also prolongs the life of the equipment used to create glass products. Similarly, making aluminum cans from recycled aluminum uses a fraction of the energy needed to make them from bauxite ore.

Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics, and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution, poverty, and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure.