Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

Recycling provides a great service to individuals, to society, and to the environment. These 7 benefits of recycling may explain why it is important both locally and nationally:

1. Recycling provides financial Benefits

2. Recycling helps conserve limited resources

3. Recycling helps save energy

4. Recycling helps build community

5. Recycling helps create jobs

6. Recycling helps promote a strong economy

7. Recycling helps protect the environment

For an more information about each of these benefits, please visit my source at:

The Expert answers:

Here are a list of jobs that are available in recycling as followed:

Waste Recycling Manager
Most jobs in waste recycling industry are managerial roles, as sorting machines are gradually replacing sorters and factory workers. A waste recycling manager can find a job in municipal solid waste departments and private waste management companies. Responsibilities of a waste recycling manager include overseeing staff activities in diverse areas like waste collection and disposal; working closely with other departments such as public education; and managing the recycling premises.

Waste Collector
By collecting recyclable trash, the waste collector provides an important link between the public and the recycling industry as the door-collection services have become increasingly available even in small towns. Waste collector positions often require little formal education, as recycling facilities generally offer full training. Collecting only the specific recyclable waste bags, thus avoiding contamination by other types of non-recyclable waste, is the main responsibility of a waste collector.

Waste Recycling Operative
A waste recycling operative or sorter is responsible for waste classification according to material, such as glass, metal, plastic and paper. Recycling companies can sort waste more specifically; for example, they can separate different types of plastic or metal. Although sorting machines can perform most of the work of a waste recycling operative, role is still important in areas where such facilities are not available.

Public Educator
Educating people about the benefits of waste reduction and recycling is the most important role of the public educator–a job that suits people with educational or environmental degree backgrounds. In the recycling industry, a public educator is a person who works with the community, schools and various associations, informing adults and children about the long-term environmental impacts of solid waste and how to separate household waste. The job also involves the planning and execution of educational campaigns and materials.

The Expert answers:

Recycling requires more jobs in the United States and local area which puts more people at a decent job. Recycling also allows for us to cut dependency on other countries for certain resources that we can produce here from recycled material. Recycling preserves our forests and countries resources so that if there is a threat to the United States we have a great pool of resources to defend ourselves and is not being used to people can wipe their asses with virgin wood.

The Expert answers:

Our town had a big dumpster bin that a semi pulled into a village parking lot empty, then would pull it out in two weeks full. We had to take our recyclables there, sort them, and put them in the proper receptacles in the dumpster. If you took them once a week it was an easy job.

Now, due to people putting stuff in that was not recyclable, like aluminum lawn chairs, and such, the fee for this service tripled, and the village has canceled it’s service. So just know that it is important to only put in that which you know to be recyclable.

The Expert answers:

Yes, recycling is totally worth it.. I did an 8 page research paper on it just last semester. The information I found was excellent.. People claim that recycling isn’t worth it because of OLD technology.. That made it so it wasn’t worth it..
NOW most common recycling plants use lasers to sense the different types of materials, as well as sort them by hand and some other techniques. There have been all kinds of scams by people trying to make money and will say they can dispose of something properly and don’t. Now the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has a lot stricter guideliness and do monitor those things. So just because it HAS in the past been a scam it is rare to find them now.

Also recycling has actually become very profitable for cities, that is the cities where people actually participate in the recycling programs. The more and more people recycle.. The more and more profitable it is to have the program and are able to sell them and remake them into other marketable commodities. Think about it.. The more you recycle, the more worthwhile it is for the trucks to be picking up from every house. The people who don’t make any effort are the reason a recycling program wouldn’t be beneficial financially.
But any effort is beneficial environmentally.

AND RECYCLING ACCOUNTS FOR MORE JOBS THAN FAST FOOD INDUSTRYAND HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY WHICH ARE SOME OF THE LARGEST JOB PRODUCERS IN THE COUNTRY!! AND IT IS ALSO HAS HIGH PAY ROLL

Id be more than happy to show you some statistics on them.

Well-run recycling programs cost less to operate than waste collection, landfilling, and incineration.

The more people recycle, the cheaper it gets.

Two years after calling recycling a $40 million drain on the city, New York City leaders realized that a redesigned, efficient recycling system could actually save the city $20 million and they have now signed a 20-year recycling contract.

Recycling helps families save money, especially in communities with pay-as-you-throw programs.

Well-designed programs save money. Communities have many options available to make their programs more cost-effective, including maximizing their recycling rates, implementing pay-as-you-throw programs, and including incentives in waste management contracts that encourage disposal companies to recycle more and dispose of less.

[ANYONE WHO THINGS RECYCLING IS A WASTE OF TIME OR MONEY IS MISINFORMED OR JUST IGNORANT!]

The Expert answers:

I was fortunate enough to be able to see two recycling projects first hand at some schools in Texas. These particular projects were chosen with the purpose of giving students a hands on experience of seeing how the efforts of individuals can impact the overall community.

Two of the best recycling projects I have seen schools successfully run and enthusiastically championed by the schools and their student body are the following:

The “Shoe Shak”

Students were encouraged to bring their used, outgrown shoes that were in good to great conditon to donate. I heard stories over the years from kids that had donated a once “favorite” pair of shoes.

Some students expressed how good it made them feel to know that their outgrown, “favorite” wasn’t just being thrown away but given another chance to be a favorite in someone else’s life once again. Kids would tell how they stayed up late the night before cleaning up the shoes they had brought in or tell how they bought new laces for a pair of tennis shoes that were otherwise almost new.

The student council would go over the shoes every month, which were deposited into one of about 3 large wooden bins (sized like a U.S. Postal mailbox with open slots just below the top, painted like a tropical hut or shack) built by a few dads, to clean and sort them before donating them to an “adopted” school in the city.

Because the program was so enthusiastically contributed to, eventually their were so many shoes donated from this and other district schools, that the shoes went to children outside the district as well. It has been going on for 11 years now.

The “Book Boat”

Another ongoing successful project I’ve seen in 2 schools is one they named the “Book Boat”.

Like the shoes, students were encouraged to bring paperback and hardback books they were finished reading. Students were told they could include a short note (which encouraged use of their grammer and writing skills) to tell what they liked about the book if they wished.

Over a period of about two years, it became a solid tradition for students to donate a favorite (some brought new books) book on their birthday as well.

Many students in other schools whose parents didn’t have the resources to purchase personally owned books for their kids, received books on a regular basis.

One recipient school gave every child a new “used” book once a month and finished school by giving each child (even the older ones who were graduating to a different school) 3-4 books to enjoy for the summer. For many students, this was their only reading opportunity as their parents worked too many jobs to take them to the library, didn’t encourage reading, or didn’t have the transportation.

The first school to recieve the donated books, which piled high in plastic Little Tikes boats (sold as sandboxes) positioned in the donating school’s hallways, had writing and sharing programs the first week of new school years in which kids would write and then read their essay about “where they went” over summer vacation. Their “trips” to be written about centered on a book they read. The students had been told previously how a book could take you to another land, culture or neighborhood and how you could mentally escape on a fantasy vacation through a book.

Though these programs didn’t bring money into schools, they gave the students the ability to experience first hand the benefits, successes and joys of recycling and the chance to learn that there are payoffs other than money that can motivate us to put forth our efforts and dedication to a recycling project and how recycling helps a whole community rather than just one individual.

The Expert answers:

Recycling helps conserve limited resources.
Recycling is earth friendly.
Recycling creates job.

The Expert answers:

“BTW; I don’t recycle (plastic bottles/cans/paper) b/c it was a dumb idea to begin with if you consider all of the pollution associated w/ recycling.”

So everything that could be recycled should go into the landfill, correct?

Your waste that you produce should pale compared to what could be recycled. You should be producing more recyclables than items that are waste and end-up in a landfill.

Look at what you are putting through the waste stream vs. What you could put through the recycling stream.
If you composted your food(yes I know not everyone has this luxury) bought a stainless steel bottle for water(plastic bottles are not good for you), put your name on a list not to receive junk mail, and cut back on you consumption or “reduce” your consumption of products that use aluminum cans to hold their product. Just a few ways of not contributing to waste or recycling.

Transportation doesn’t have to impact the environment. CO2 impact can be reduced if the nation’s largest haulers could do an alternative fuel(bio-fuels, CNG, and hopefully soon will be algae). Maintenance on these vehicles is a necessary evil, if you think about the alternative on not taking care of the vehicles(blown engines, bad brakes that could kill someone, and checking proper fluid levels). Most of the fluids drained from a vehicle should be recycled and metals(disc brakes) can be recycled also.

Producing the receptacles for storing the recyclables. I bet if you did a Life Cycle Analysis of a receptacle, you would be shocked at the benefits vs. Just the cost(economic and environmental) to create the receptacle.

Recycling diverts material that would end-up in a landfill instead. When a landfill is done, it’s done. Garbage haulers have to then travel farther to get rid of the waste and guess what, costs get passed onto us, the producer. A town of aprx. 5,000 residents produces close to 800 tons of recyclables. Could you imagine 800 tons just being tossed into a landfill and we’ll just let the next generation worry about it.

Recycling also creates jobs at so many levels.

I disagree with recycling is Bullsh*t and we shouldn’t let the next generation figure out why we screwed things up for them. Let’s try to be sustainable now for the future.

Thanks

The Expert answers:

THE BENEFITS OF RECYCLING

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YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Recycling Saves Natural Resources
Recycling Saves Energy
Recycling Saves our Environment
Recycling Adds Value to Pennsylvania’s Economy
Recycling is Good Business

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YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Environmental problems have become so complex that many individuals feel they can have no effect on them. Problems like global warming, hazardous waste, loss of rain forests, endangered species, acid rain, the ozone layer, the municipal waste crisis can feel out of our control. At the very least, these problems require group and corporate action or government intervention.

But there are some things the individual can control. Our waste reduction and recycling activities can make a difference. That’s why nearly 1,600 Pennsylvania communities recycle, over three times the number required to recycle by Act 101.

Benefits of Recycling
Recycling benefits both the environment and the economy. The next time you recycle your plastic bottle, aluminum can, or newspaper, remember how you are part of the solution.

Environmental Benefits

Using recycled materials in the manufacturing process conserves energy, saves natural resources, and reduces pollution.

Conserves Energy
Using recycled materials as raw materials to make new products saves a significant amount of energy. Here’s how much these materials save compared to their virgin counterparts.

Recycled newspaper uses 40% less energy.
Recycled glass uses 40% less energy.
Recycled steel uses 60% less energy.
Recycled plastic uses 70% less energy.
Recycled aluminum uses 95% less energy.
Saves Natural Resources
Using recycled materials means we can log fewer forests, mine fewer metals, and drill for less oil.

Every ton of newspaper or mixed paper recycled saves the equivalent of 12 trees.
Every ton of office paper recycled saves the equivalent of 24 trees.
Every ton of steel recycled conserves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and 120 pounds of limestone.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The national recycling rate of 30% reduces greenhouse gas emissions by as much as removing nearly 25 million cars from the road.

In 2007, Hamilton County residents recycled 31,985 tons of material. The environmental benefits include:

Reduced greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing 21,095 cars from the road
Conserved energy equivalent to 1,744,119 gallons of gasoline
Saved 967 tons of natural resources
Saved 274,042 trees
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Economic Benefits

Many residents understand the environmental benefits of recycling, but did you know recycling also has economic benefits?

The recycling industry has a total economic impact of 169,000 jobs and $6 billion in annual wages, just in the state of Ohio.
The recycling industry accounts for $7.3 billion in annual sales, just in the state of Ohio.
Recycling supplies valuable materials to industry.