What happens when you recycle?

Question

Watch me in a video about this question on Answers on the Street at: http://answersonthestreet.yahoo.com/question/24/What-happens-when-you-recycle/

Answer 1

Recyclates are sorted and separated into material types. Contamination of the recylates with other materials must be prevented to increase the recyclates' value and facilitate easier reprocessing for the ultimate recycling facility. This sorting can be performed either by the producer of the waste or within semi- or fully-automated materials recovery facilities.

Answer 2

In most municipalities, recycling programs are promoted a lot because people have been taught in school that recycling is a good thing. After this ad campaign has been underway for a while, the people in charge of the infrastructure start figuring out how to make it work. At first, everyone is pumped to bring this into fruition. However, after the accountants explain the reality that either some other program will need to be reduced or, even worse, these people's salaries will need to be frozen for several years to pay for the program, they decide to only complete half the recycling program. So the fancy new garbage trucks are purchased along with the new waste containers to be distributed freely or at a cost. But in the end, the waste still ends up buried in the landfill. The Yahoo video denies this but it's happened in quite a few communities.

Answer 3

I think about it when I recycle stuff in the blue trashcan

Coincidentally my dept of water and sanitation (LA recycling)has kindly answered my question and it's pretty similar to the movie

Basically the stuff arrives at MRF'S (Material Recovery Facilities), where conveyors are used along with human hands to sort the different types of plastics, cardboard, newspapers, and regular paper, clean styrofoam along with glass, metal or plastic hangers, phonebooks, etc....

No robots are doing this apparently, it's (still?) people

Glad I'm always considerate to rinse items to avoid can smells, it also helps the staff at the MRF

They also say the present recycling rate is 62%, with a goal to reach 70% by 2015

Answer 4

When you recycle, the stuff you recycled gets used again. For instance, if you recycled a notebook full of used paper, they wouldn't need to cut down those trees again, would they?

Answer 5

What Happens When We Recycle?

Recycling is a series of activities that includes collecting recyclable materials that would otherwise be considered waste, sorting and processing recyclables into raw materials such as fibers, and manufacturing raw materials into new products.

Step 1. Collection and Processing
Collecting recyclables varies from community to community, but there are four primary methods: curbside, drop-off centers, buy-back centers, and deposit/refund programs. Regardless of the method used to collect the recyclables, the next leg of the journey is usually the same. Recyclables are sent to a materials recovery facility to be sorted and prepared into marketable commodities for manufacturing. Recyclables are bought and sold just like any other commodity, and prices for the materials change and fluctuate with the market.

Step 2. Manufacturing
Once cleaned and separated, the recyclables are ready to undergo the second part of the recycling loop. More and more of today's products are being manufactured with total or partial recycled content. Common household items that contain recycled materials include newspapers and paper towels; aluminum, plastic, and glass soft drink containers; steel cans; and plastic laundry detergent bottles. Recycled materials also are used in innovative applications such as recovered glass in roadway asphalt (glassphalt) or recovered plastic in carpeting, park benches, and pedestrian bridges.

Step 3. Purchasing Recycled Products
Purchasing recycled products completes the recycling loop. By "buying recycled," governments, as well as businesses and individual consumers, each play an important role in making the recycling process a success. As consumers demand more environmentally sound products, manufacturers will continue to meet that demand by producing high-quality recycled products.

The 3- R’s of Recycling
We can have a major impact on the amount of garbage produced in our state by becoming aware of how much we throw out and changing some of our habits about buying and using every day products. Environmentally aware consumers are producing less waste by practicing the “3 R’s:” Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. They are buying products that are less toxic or contain less packaging, using reusable containers and other reusable items, maintaining and repairing products, participating in recycling programs, and buying products made from recycled materials.

Reduce
Waste prevention, or "source reduction," means consuming and throwing away less by purchasing durable, long-lasting goods; seeking products and packaging that are as free of toxics as possible; products that have a longer life, or can be used again.

Reuse
Reusing items -- by repairing them, donating them to charity and community groups, or selling them -- also reduces waste. Reusing products, when possible, is even better than recycling because the item does not need to be reprocessed before it can be used again.

Recycle

Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. In addition, it generates a host of environmental, financial, and social benefits. Materials like glass, metal, plastics, and paper are collected, separated and sent to facilities that can process them into new materials or products.

Answer 6

I recycle by creating art!Everything just about can be made into art.I would love to see people who are normally don't do art,try it and see what they come up with!

Answer 7

Well there is a cycle when you recycle the cans and all the other stuff gets reused and turned into other things

Answer 8

Newspaper : Reused as wrapping paper. Reprocessed into newsprint. Manufacture molded flower pots. Newspapers can be recycled into paperboard, new newsprint, insulation and animal bedding products.
Paper: Office paper can be recycled into writing paper, tissue and towel products.
Telephone books: can be recycled into egg cartons and wine boxes.
Cardboard: Manufactures "medium": the ribbed inner layer of corrugated cardboard. Manufactures "liner board": the outer layer of corrugated cardboard and brown paper bags. Corrugated paper and cardboard can be used to make new paperboard and corrugated boxes
Aluminum: Roller sheets of aluminum can be formed into many products such as car bodies. Aluminum is also cast (molded) or extruded into many useful forms. Recycled aluminum has the same quality as new. Empty aluminum drink cans are sent overseas for recycling and can be recycled again and again. Recycled aluminum cans are sorted, crushed and baled into "bricks" for transporting. These bricks are fed into a hot furnace where the aluminum melts and the melted aluminum is then cast into smaller ingots which are processed into new aluminum cans.
Steel Cans: Tin and steel are separated. The tin is used by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Steel cans that have contained anything from baked beans to fruit cocktail, pet food or soup can be recycled to make new cars and bridges.
Glass: Re manufactured into new glass containers. Manufactured into stain glass. Empty glass bottles and jars can be recycled to make things like decorative paving and aggregate for asphalt or swimming pool filters, as well as new glass jars and bottles. Some glass, such as mirror glass and crystal, cannot be recycled because of high lead content.
Motor Oil : Used as fuel for boilers equipped for easy ash removal. Used to lighten bunker fuel, the heavy residue left from virgin oil refining, for use in ship's boilers. Burned in asphalt plants and cement and lime kilns for heat.
Plastics: High-density Polyethylene: flower pots, car parts, toys, drainage pipe.
PET (soda bottles): fiber-fill industrial strapping, carpet backing. 25 plastic soft drink bottles can be recycled to make an ecofleece top.
Polystyrene (including foam): desktop products.
Mixed plastics: molded products, plastic lumber and pallets.
A Styrofoam vending cup can be made into a pencil or a pen.
Plastic bags and containers can be recycled into garden furniture, decking and fencing. Milk bottles can be recycled into buckets, composting bins or the recycling bins many councils use for curbside recycling.

Answer 9

What a load of bull. Propaganda at it’s worse.

When you really, I mean really look at recycling programs, most of what you recycle ends up in, surprise, a landfill.

With a few exceptions, most metals, the goods aren’t worth the money it took collect, separate, bundle, to make it ready for sale, and that’s with YOU doing a lot of the work for FREE!

I’ve heard all the arguments for recycling, most are bogus.

Landfill space, we aren’t anywhere close to running out of land fill space, we have more landfill space now then we had 50 years ago.

Landfills are unsafe, by the EPS’s own admission landfill are environmentally safe.

It saves resources, true for a few items, but can you name anything you use everyday that the world is short of? We have more oil, more metals, more wood etc then we did fifty years ago.

Recycling center provide good jobs. Well, if your idea of a good job is separating garbage then it might be, but the recycling center needs TAX money to operate we would be better off paying these people to clean our parks, clean our roads, maybe fix a few potholes, give the elderly rides for medical appointments, etc. Personally I find it a much better job helping keep our streets and parks clean, or providing transportation for the elderly.

Recycling is good for the environment. I love this one, lets see we send special trucks around to pick up the items, that’s at least one extra trip, sometimes more then one depending on how full the truck get with one item. If the truck fills up with glass, let’s say, they have to go back to the recycling center dump, drive back and start collecting again. That burning fuel, and uses rubber for the tires, oil, grease, and all the other things a truck needs to keep running. Then we send garbage trucks around to pick up all the things that aren’t recycled. Then after the items that were sent to be recycled are separated into what can and can’t be sold the rest, most of it, is put on a garbage truck and hauled to a landfill, burning even more fuel, using more tires, oil, etc.

Recycling will pay for itself. No it doesn’t in most cases; the exception is the one recycling program that only takes aluminum cans, they make money the rest lose money. Ask yourself this if the recycling center makes so much money why do they need tax dollars? If the items to be recycled are so valuable why don’t we see trucks sneaking around stealing them? You don’t because you lose money selling them. If you don’t believe me, call you local recycling center and ask what they are paying for a ton of paper, ton of glass, etc in most cases they’ll take it for free or you might have to pay for them to take it. Give me a ton of aluminum and I get paid for it. Strange, something that industry really wants have value while the items they don’t want don’t.

Save the environment don’t recycle.

Answer 10

I really are not that concious of recyclling as my partner does it for me as I find it a waste of time - laziness I think,
I think he puts the paper in one bin and cans in another and plastics and food scraps in another - so much time wasting and seperating - gee is even painful answering this question nmm good luck to all that do it its not my cup of tea