Is recycling helpful for the enviorment as we think it is?

Question

one of my teachers told me that the recycling process hurts our enviorment more..is this right?

Answer 1

Is it as good as we think it is? Probably not.

Does it hurt the environment more than using new materials? No.

That being said, how beneficial something is depends on the material in question. Because the quality of products such as plastic and paper deteriorates as it is recycled, some new material must be added to the recycling process, detracting from the overall benefits. Another consideration is energy input - recycling an aluminium can uses 5% of the energy required to create a new can. Styrofoam on the other hand, uses almost as much energy as the creation of new styrofoam, and it is a man made material. In this case, I wouldn't say it is more detrimental to the environment, but probably about equal to creating new materials.

Answer 2

Primary steel: 1.6 tonne CO2/tonne of steel produced

Recycled steel: 0.8 tonne CO2/tonne of steel produced

Primary Aluminium: 19.0 tonne CO2/tonne of aluminium produced

Recycled Aluminium: 1.0 tonne CO2/tonne of aluminium produced

Assuming these stats are accurate I'd have to say your teacher to put it politely is misinformed. Let also not forget  to mention that land fills produce global warming gases of their own.

If I were a betting man I'd think your teacher had some other agenda than the welfare of the environment.

Nevertheless we all should remember in the order of the 3 R's of recycling Reduce and Reuse come first. How many people keep that in mind whether they recycle or not.

Answer 3

good question. I guess it depends on how they recycle certain things. BUT, even if that was the case its still alot better to reuse things that we already have than to keep making new stuff. Plastic for example... theres soo much of it. It lasts for soooooo long before it starts to break down but they make new stuff still... ya know?

Im not a believer of al gore at all but, keeping nature as beautiful as god intended it to be is something i do believe in.

Answer 4

no - he is incorrect

this used to be the case with certain materials, but those processes have largely been replaced with new more efficient methods that have less environmental impact than extracting raw material.

Answer 5

There is only so much raw materials available.  It only makes sense to reuse materials when we can.  

Recycling aluminum for instance is particularly benficial because smelting bauxite to make iron ore can only be done with electricity.  Enormous amounts of electricity.

There was a book written maybe 30 years ago called "The End of Affluence"  that talks about how the earth has a finite amount of available recources.  The U.S. with 5% of the worlds population uses 25% of the worlds resource.

We have this high standard of living with  seemingly endless consumer products.

What happens if all the third world and second world countries  become as developed as we are?  Where are enough resources going to come from for everyone to live like we do?  

The supply is not endless.

Answer 6

Recycling does have some drawbacks, but there is no way that "the recycling process hurts our environment more" than mining and processing raw materials.

Conservatives fault recycling mainly because recycling is more expensive than just dumping these resources into landfills. We live in a throw-away society. However, the amount of resources on Earth is limited; it would be best if we could Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle whenever possible.

Protecting Earth and the environment may be more expensive than trashing it, but I would argue that Planet Earth is worth protecting.

Answer 7

that doesnt make sense at all. recycling always helps the planet