Recycling

Recycling is a process to convert used materials or wastes into other useful materials, with the intention to reduce wastage.  Recycling conserves natural resources, reduces the consumption of raw materials and minimizes energy usage. This in turn, suppresses greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, reduces the need for landfilling and incineration to preserve the environment for future generations.

Recycling is the third component of waste hierarchy consisting of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Waste hierarchy is a waste management process to extract the optimum benefits from resources while generating minimum amount of waste. Recycling with a series of steps enabled a chain of financial, environmental and social return.

The first step is collecting and processing. This step encapsulates a series of processes including the collection of recyclables that varies from community to community, via four primary methods: curbside, drop-off centers, buy-back centers, and deposit/refund programs. Next, the recyclables are delivered to materials recovery facility for sorting and conditioning into raw materials for manufacturing process.

The second step is manufacturing. The cleaned and sorted recyclables are then prepared for manufacturing into respective merchandises. These includes  common household items such as paper towels, newspapers, plastic, aluminum and glass soft drink containers, steel cans, and plastic laundry detergent bottles.

The final step is purchasing. Consuming the recycled products completes the recycling loop. At whole, the community, government, business people and individuals have the same important role to play in bringing out the greatness in recycling concept. Once these recycled products gain recognition and popularity, the manufacturers will be driven to produce high quality recycled products to meet the public’s demand.

The term recycling is described more precisely as:
Upcycle - converting low-value materials into high-value products (more desirable)
Downcycle – converting valuable products into low-value raw materials (less desirable)

Information adopted from: Wikipedia.org and US EPA

Picture source: Sunrise Packaging blog