What are the benefits of recycling aluminium, glass, plastics, paper and cardboard?

Question

What are the benefits of recycling aluminium, glass, plastics, paper and cardboard?

Answer 1

The reality is aluminium makes sense to recycle.  Places can convert your used cans back to raw aluminium cheaper than they can mine it from the ground.  The same isn't always true of other things like plastics, glass and paper products.  In fact some paper products are really completely worthless.  In general there are only two benefits from recycling one is it saves money... in cases where that is true like aluminium cans you will find companies willing to buy your old cans.  That is a sign that it makes sense to recycle.  The other benefit is just to make people feel good, these are the things that would be better off buried as trash but because some green idiots got a government to subsidize recycling you can put them in a special bin and feel like you did something good (fact is a large part of what goes into those special bins ends up buried with the rest of the garbage, its a dirty secret no one wants you to know).  

Answer 2

Recycling reduces the amount of stuff we need to bury in a landfill and it reduces the need for the virgin material which will let our supply last longer in the case of non renewable items like metals and plastics and will allow us to slow down cutting of trees which are renewable, but only if we are replacing them in a sustainable way.

Answer 3

BENEFITS OF RECYCLING

Recycling saves resources

Using recycled materials in manufacturing reduces the need to destroy habitat and ecosystems in the extraction of raw materials. Fewer clear cuts, strip mines and oil drilling operations mean more of earth’s ecosystems remains intact.

Recycling saves energy, reduces pollution

Using recycled content instead of bauxite ore to make aluminum cans reduces energy use by 95%, water pollution by 97% and air pollution by 95%.  

Recycled content in writing paper reduces energy use by 33%, air pollution by 73% and water pollution by35%.  

Glass manufacturing with recycled content reduces energy use by 5%, air pollution by 22 % and manufacturing waste by 75%.  

Answer 4

Although factories run, which put out carbon emissions when recycling occurs, two things happen.

1.  You are reducing the amount of litter that is being put in or on the ground.

2. You lessen the amounts of materials that need to be newly taken from the Earth, thereby lengthening the amount of time the human race can inhabit it.