Help the Planet

Recycling is one of the easiest and most effective ways you can make a difference on our planet! By recycling, we are able to conserve our natural resources and energy, save landfill space, reduce water pollution and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling can even save you money!

By recycling we save natural resources in two ways. First, we need less of the new, virgin materials used to create a new product because we already have the material! Second, we burn less fossil fuel because recycling requires less energy.

Here is an example: In order to make aluminum, we need to use something called bauxite ore. Bauxite ore is a natural resource. Once we have the bauxite ore, we need to operate equipment to make it into aluminum, which uses energy. In addition to using the natural resource to make the aluminum, we need another natural resource to create the energy. By recycling aluminum, we not only save the raw material (bauxite ore) originally used to make the aluminum, but we save energy, too! This in turn saves fossil fuels. Recycling aluminum requires only 5% of the energy that producing aluminum from raw materials requires!

Recycling paper, aluminum, glass and plastic bottles all require less energy to recycle than it takes to produce from using original natural resources.

Learn more about reducing, reusing and recycling and then test yourself by taking the Green Team Quiz! To learn ways that recycling can help save money, click here or review our Recycling Facts.