Why Recycle?

I was honored to be chosen as Lens of the Day in the Spring of 2007!

"Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely." - Auguste Rodin

A lot of things in life that are worth doing take time. For instance, it is easy for us to donate money to a certain cause or charity instead of our time. Time is an extremely precious commodity.

Some folks complain that they have to sort their recyclables. Those of us that currently do not have curbside pickup have to drive to the local Recycling Center and drop off our recyclables. Others just plain don't like handling "trash."

It sure is easy and it saves a bit of time to just dump everything in the trash bin. No sorting or rinsing required.

Would you rather do what is easy, or what is right?

Plastics are a petroleum based product. We all know what affect the rising oil prices have on us in regards to gasoline. Plastic products take hundreds of years to decompose.

Example:
The plastic milk jug that you used to pour the milk on your cereal this morning will take 400 years to decompose if you throw it in your trash.

However, if you take the few minutes (versus 400 years in a landfill) to rinse and recycle, that used milk jug could become part of your child's new playground equipment, a park bench, or the handrail on someone's deck.

By the way - this website shows 35+ uses for milk jugs.

It just makes ¢ents!
Recycling makes products available at lower prices because it lowers the production costs.

If time is money and recycling can save you money in the future, then aren't you being compensated (beyond the good feelings) for your recycling efforts after all?

Just my $.02

I received some recycling facts from our local recycling service with our most recent invoice. I found it rather interesting.

For each ton of paper we recycle we save:
17 trees
4100 kilowatts of energy
7000 gallons of water
3 cubic yards of landfill space
10 gallons of oil
60 pounds of air pollution

For every ton of plastic we recycle we save:
577 kilowatts of energy
685 gallons of oil
30 pounds of air pollution

For every ton of aluminum we recycle we save:
1663 gallons of oil
14,000 kilowatts of energy
10 cubic yards of landfill space

For every ton of glass we recycle we save:
42 kilowatts of energy
75 pounds of pollutants
5 gallons of oil
2 cubic yards of landfill space

For every ton of steel we recycle we save:
642 kilowatts of energy
76 gallons of oil
4 cubic yards of landfill space