Over 110 years ago, the very first recycling facility in the United States was inaugurated, it was in New York. Up until 1960, the amount of waste material sent for recycling hovered around five million tons per year. It was also around 1960 when people began to show genuine concern for the environment and recycling took off, today almost 100 million tons are recycled every year. There has been awareness of the problem across the country, including recycling in Denver CO.
Although 100 million tons seems like a great deal of recycled waste, it still only represents a little over 30% of the total waste, where does the waste that is not sent to recycling Denver CO go? Over 55% ends up in landfills; the balance is incinerated, filling the air with toxic emissions. It is quite obvious that the country has a long way to go yet.
Just what is recycling?
Every time there is a discussion about recycling, we hear the “three Rs”, reducing, reusing and recycling. To reduce means the waste volume that ends up in a landfill; it also is a reduction of the dangerous liquids that enter the water table and air pollutants when waste is disposed of improperly. Reusing is extending the life of things by reusing them at home or donating them so others can use them and of course recycling means that we must make every effort to use products which have been made from recycled materials.
The benefits of recycling:
If the earth’s population is going to continue to grow with no appreciable change in lifestyle, it will not take many years before we are all inundated with garbage and we have effectively destroyed the environment. Every time we buy something, it seems that is packaged in layer after layer of material. When you buy a frozen pot pie, the pie is in aluminum foil, packed in a cardboard box and then protected with a shrink film outer layer. Digging a giant hole for all this garbage is not the answer to the problem, recycling is.
Good reasons for recycling in Denver CO:
Income: Not only can waste material be sold, the community will benefit from savings in waste collection and waste disposal.
Conservation of resources: Putting one aluminum can in the garbage rather than being recycled is equal to throwing out six ounces of gasoline. When aluminum cans are recycled, at last count they represented a savings of over 15 million barrels of oil.
Energy efficiency: It takes more energy to produce an aluminum can from raw material than it does from recycled cans.
Jobs: When 10,000 tons of waste goes for incineration, only one job is created. The same 10,000 tons of waste, if recycled will create 36 jobs.
