Midterm Report-part B

Simply stated, recycling reduces greenhouse gas emissions because it saves energy. A statistic from www.recycling-revolution.com states that a national recycling rate of 30% reduces greenhouse gas emissions as much as removing nearly 25 million cars off the road.  It benefits the air and water quality by creating a net reduction in ten major categories of air pollutants and eight major categories of water pollutants.  Specifically, in the U.S. processing minerals contributes almost half of all reported toxic emissions from industry, sending 1.5 million tons of pollution into the air and water each year. Recycling can significantly reduce these emissions because there would be less demand for these prime materials.   On the individual level, recycling reduces one’s carbon footprint because it requires less energy and produces less pollution than making things from scratch.  This is specifically true for: aluminum cans that only use twelfth of the energy, glass bottles in which every ton recycled can save 315kg of CO₂; plastic bags from recycled polythene which utilize one third the sulfur dioxide and half the nitrous oxide.

Sources:

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/recycling.html

http://www.recycling-revolution.com/recycling-benefits.html