IT SAVES MONEY AND CREATES JOBS!

Collection and processing, the first step in the recycling process, involves sorting and aggregating recyclable materials. It includes municipal and private collectors, material recovery and composting facilities, and recyclable material wholesalers. These activities employ nearly 10,000 people in Pennsylvania, with a payroll of $284 million and annual sales of $2.3 billion.

Recycling manufacturing involves the actual conversion of recyclables into products. The primary recycling manufacturers in Pennsylvania in order of magnitude are steel mills, plastic converters, paper and paperboard mills, and nonferrous metal manufacturers. Recycling manufacturing employs over 64,000 people with a payroll of almost $2.5 billion and annual sales of over $15.5 billion.

Reuse and remanufacturing focuses on the refurbishing and repair of products to be reused in their original form. The largest activities are retail sales of used merchandise and reuse of used motor vehicle parts. The amount of value that can be added via this process is limited because of competition from new products. Nevertheless, reuse and manufacturing contributes over 7,000 jobs, a payroll of $115 million and sales of over a half billion dollars.

IT SAVES ENERGY!

Additional energy savings associated with recycling accrue in the manufacturing process itself, since the materials have already undergone processing. Recycling in Pennsylvania in 2004 saved over 66 trillion BTUs of energy, enough to power 643,000 houses.

Recycling paper cuts energy usage in half. Every pound of steel recycled saves 5,450 BTUs of energy, enough to light a 60-watt bulb for over 26 hours. Recycling a ton of glass saves the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel oil. Recycling used aluminum cans requires only about five percent of the energy needed to produce aluminum from bauxite. Recycling just one can saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb for 3½ hours.

IT SAVES LANDFILL SPACE!

How would you feel if you had to eat garbage everyday? That's what we're doing to the earth and it's getting full! When the landfills fill up, new landfills will need to be created and landfill tipping fees (the money that waste haulers pay to deposit their material) will go up - along with our curbside collection costs. You may not realize it, but recycling now will save you money later.

IT SAVES THE ENVIRONMENT!

Recycling Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By reducing the amount of energy used by industry, recycling also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps prevent global climate change. This is because much of the energy used in industrial processes and in transportation involves burning fossil fuels like gasoline, diesel and coal, the most important sources of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions into the environment. Additional benefits are derived from reduced emissions from incinerators and landfills and by slowing the harvest of trees, which are carbon sinks. In 2004, recycling reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2 million metric tons of carbon equivalent.

Recycling Reduces Emissions of Air and Water Pollutants

In addition to greenhouse gases, recycling can reduce a range of pollutants from entering the air and water. By decreasing the need to extract and process new raw materials from the earth, recycling can eliminate the pollution associated with the initial stages of a product's development: material extraction, refining and processing. These activities pollute the air, land and water with toxic materials, such as ammonia, carbon monoxide, methane, and sulfur dioxides. Further reductions are achieved as a result of energy saving, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants. In addition to the greenhouse gas reductions mentioned previously, additional reductions of air emissions due to recycling total 587,000 tons . Reduced water emissions total nearly 9,000 tons

IT SAVES OUR NATURAL RESOURCES!

Reprocessing used materials to make new products and packaging reduces the consumption of natural resources. By recycling over 1 million tons of steel in 2004, Pennsylvanians saved 1.3 million tons of iron ore, 718,000 tons of coal, and 62,000 tons of limestone. Through recycling newsprint, office paper and mixed paper, we saved nearly over 8.2 million trees. Recycling often produces better products than those made of virgin materials; for instance, the tin in "tin" cans is more refined (thus more valuable) after being processed for recycling.

Source reduction, preventing waste before it is generated, can further reduce the need for disposal and save more resources.