When did people first start to recycle? Does recycling have a history?

Question

When did people first start to recycle? Does recycling have a history?

Answer 1

recycling has gone on almost as long as man has. every time you buy a rebuilt item for your car, or used parts for your car, or many other products on the market today, you are buying recycled items. perhaps not 100% recycled though.

Answer 2

Nature's been recycling since Day 1.

Throw a steak outside and see what happens in a few days.

Answer 3

There is documentary evidence of recycling going back to old Babylon. But we have no idea what sort of diversion rates they had.

Answer 4

Newsflash!!!

Recycling wasn't invented by hippies.  The Chinese recycled, the American revolutionaries recycled, as did early sock makers.

In 200 BC the Chinese Shang Dynasty charged workers with recycling bronze into weapons and charioy accessories.

In 1690 AD the Rittenhouse Paper Mill opened in Philadelphia.  Paper was pressed from recycled fibers, including rags and waste paper.

There is more, there is an article about it in Readymade Magazine actually.

Answer 5

The first farmers recycled. They crapped in their fields. They saw sewage as a resource.

Answer 6

I remember in the fifties my parents had a diner and we used to recycle the little coke bottles.   All bottles used to have a fee attached to them if they were not returned.

This would be pre plastic bottles.

Answer 7

When I was a child, during WWII, we recycled lots of things.

They took our iron railings (to make bombs).

We collected aluminum foil, rubber bands, & meat drippings.

Answer 8

My little town just started recycling this spring. They were going to pick up paper and cardboard. That's all. Of course, we only have about 1,000 residents. They were going to pick it up ever week, but found out nobody was putting out their stuff, so they changed it to 1 thursday in a month. When we put our cardboard out, they didn't pick it up. I think they've decided it doesn't "pay." Across the river from us in Maryland, there is a recycling bin, but they only take metal, aluminum cans and newspaper "only." We would like to recycle everything, but there's nowhere to take it around here.

Answer 9

In my home town in New Hampshire it was well underway at least 35 years ago, we had a system of 25-30 categories which was recycled.  This material was sold and the income kept the recycle center operating.

Answer 10

Yes a very long one. There is the water cycle. The plants take in CO2 and give us oxygen. The plants also recycle our fossil fuel . The plants capture the sun from the sun and use that to store our present fossil fuels ,but it is presently recycling fossil fuel.