Environmental problems have become so complex that many businesses and individuals can feel helpless in the fight to protect our natural resources. Problems like global warming, hazardous waste, loss of rain forests, endangered species, acid rain, the ozone layer, and the municipal waste crisis can feel out of our control. But there are ways we can help. Our waste reduction and recycling activities can make a difference
- For additional recycling questions, call 1-800-346-4242 or contact your County Recycling Coordinators
- Learn where to recycle all sort of items, from antifreeze to yard waste, at Earth911.org
- Economics
- The first step in the recycling process involves collecting, sorting, and aggregating recyclable materials. It includes public and private hauling operations, material recovery facilities, scrap yards, recyclable material wholesalers, and compost and mulch facilities. About 1,837 of these operations employ 12,698 people in Pennsylvania, with a payroll of $962 million and annual sales of $4.7 billion.
- Recycling manufacturing further processes, refines, and converts recycled feedstocks into manufactured goods, which include glass container and beneficiation plants, paper and steel mills and converters, foundries, and plastic interim processors and manufacturers. This sector includes 579 operations that employ over 39,799 people with a payroll of $3.3 billion and annual sales of over $23.7 billion.
- Reuse and remanufacturing focus on the refurbishing and repair of products to be reused in their original form. These activities include electronics, valuable used motor vehicle parts, furniture and clothing, wood reuse, and other types of remanufacturing or reuse. Approximately 3,957 operations in the reuse and manufacturing sector contribute over 13,544 jobs, a payroll of $537 million and sales of over $1.5 billion.
- Energy Conservation
- Energy savings are a very important environmental benefit of recycling. Using energy requires the consumption of scarce fossil fuels and involves emissions of numerous air and water pollutants. The steps in supplying recycled materials to industry (including collection, processing and transportation) typically use less energy than the steps in supplying virgin materials to industry (including extraction, refining, transportation and processing).
- Additional energy savings associated with recycling accrue in the manufacturing process itself, since the materials have already undergone processing. Recycling in Pennsylvania in 2005 saved over 98 trillion BTUs of energy, enough to power 941,000 houses.
- Resource Conservation
- Our finite reserves of natural resources are being depleted rapidly, particularly with the increasing use of disposable products and packaging. This rate of use and disposal takes a particularly heavy toll on irreplaceable natural resources from our forests and mines.
- Reprocessing used materials to make new products and packaging reduces the consumption of natural resources. By recycling over 1.2 million tons of steel in 2005, Pennsylvanians saved 1.4 million tons of iron ore, 829,786 tons of coal, and 71,124 tons of limestone. Recycling often produces better products than those made of virgin materials. For instance, the tin in "tin" cans is more refined (thus more valuable) after being processed for recycling.
- Good For Business
- Most people know that recycling plays an important role in managing the garbage generated in homes and businesses, and that it reduces the need for landfills and incinerators. But recycling is far more than a local waste management strategy; it is also an important strategy for reducing the environmental impacts of industrial production. Supplying industry with recycled materials, rather than virgin resources extracted from forests and mines, is environmentally preferable because it saves energy, reduces emissions of greenhouse gases and other dangerous air and water pollutants, and because it conserves scarce natural resources. In 2004, Pennsylvania recycling programs supplies industry with over 4.7 million tons of scrap commodities like metals, paper, glass, plastics, wood, organics, and other materials.
- Emissions Reduction
- By reducing the amount of energy used, recycling also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps prevent global climate change. This is because much of the energy used in industrial processes and in transportation involves burning fossil fuels like gasoline, diesel and coal, the most important sources of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions into the environment. Additional benefits are derived from reduced emissions from incinerators and landfills and by slowing the harvest of trees, which are carbon sinks.
- In addition to greenhouse gases, recycling can reduce a range of pollutants from entering the air and water. By decreasing the need to extract and process new raw materials from the earth, recycling can eliminate the pollution associated with the initial stages of a product's development: material extraction, refining and processing. These activities pollute the air, land, and water with toxic materials, such as ammonia, carbon monoxide, methane, and sulfur dioxides. Further reductions are achieved because of energy saving, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants.