The importance of Reclycling

Posted by Felix Okoli on Friday April 18, 2014 at 14:44:45:

In our world of today, there are already lots of minerals that have been mined from the earth and have been used for making products. Materials such as plastic, Aluminium, copper, Iron and others are among the most commonly used materials by manufacturing companies.

Most of these materials are normally used as packaging items as well as producing parts of a product. However, with the way we are throwing them away after we've used them, it takes much more energy to mine for new materials from under the earth than if these materials were just returned for recycling.

Recylcling is what makes it possible for raw materials to be reused in a producing or manufacturing process and it saves time and energy since it removes the need for mining for new materials.

The concept of recycling has to do with turning waste products into useful products. Recycling comes in different forms, and the waste products will determine the finished products that can be created from it. For instance, in some developed countries, urine from toilets are collected and recycled into drinking water, used papers are recycled into toilet papers or paper bags, and tin containers are recycled and used to produce metals and steel.

Different countries of the world are beginning to realize the importance of recycling and I just want to mention some of the importance or benefits of recycling waste products into useful goods.

Benefits of recycling
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- Cheaper to re-use: It is cheaper to produce something new from used materials than going through the whole production of sourcing for raw materials. This is because, even at its waste or less useful state, the product is in a more advanced production stage than raw materials.

- It helps to reduce pollution: During a production process, energy is needed to turn the raw materials into finished goods and the heavy machineries normally used tend to emit gases that pollute both air and water. The amount of gases emitted from these machineries will be reduced if a recyclable material is used as the input material

- Helps save land space: Waste products if left as waste occupies land space in places where they are dumped. It will save land space which can be used to build other things if these waste products are recycled into finished goods.

- Preservation for habitat for wild life: Some of the lands where raw materials are extracted for the production of finished goods are habitats for wild life. For instance, in the production of paper and timber trees are cut down, if used papers are converted into papers and toilet rolls, it will prevent further cutting down of trees.