The act of taking care of the environment greatly benefits not only the whole world and everybody in it but also future generations who will soon live here too. Anything that we do now to our environment will have a direct impact on what the situation will be for future generations. Recycling is one of the most famous and productive ways to help save our environment. We can recycle a lot of things like paper, glass, and plastics. But, some people believe that recycling glass takes up more energy and resources than it saves. So, is glass recycling worth the time and cost? Yes, glass recycling is worth it. It has both economic and environmental benefits that could be useful in any place in the world.
Economic benefits
There is a process of glass recycling. You need workers who will be doing this job. With glass recycling, it produces jobs for the community. Compared to throwing away glass products, it takes around ten times more workers to recycle glasses, which means more jobs for more people are available. The more people there are with jobs, the better the economy of the place will be as more purchasing power and taxes go to their area.
Companies who buy recycled glass will also be able to save money with production instead of using raw materials. Recycled glass, called cullet, dissolves at a much lower temperature that crude materials. Businesses can save up to 40% in the dissolving process of making new glass products. As we all know, businesses’ primary goal is to earn as much money as they can. Who knew that recycling is one way to make more?
Other than businesses, cities or municipalities can also save money by recycling glass products. Glass is very heavy, and it takes up a lot of space. Gathering and transporting it to landfills takes up a lot of resources. Furthermore, waste disposal costs are rising because of limited landfill sites. Let’s do our part before we need to dispose our wastes under our lands because of lack of landfills.
Recycling also helps save a lot of raw materials. To produce a ton of glass, you will need more than a thousand pounds of sand, more than four hundred pounds of pop powder, more than three hundred pounds of limestone and more than one hundred pounds of feldspar. But, with glass recycling, we do not need to use more raw materials for our glass needs. Used glasses can be used to create new ones.
Environmental benefits
As we all know, recycling helps out our environment. By recycling, we lessen the carbon footprint of glass users and manufacturers. Recycling glass reduces a massive amount of CO2 that goes into our atmosphere. By reducing carbon dioxide, we greatly help our ozone layer from depleting, which causes global warming. Doing simple acts such as recycling can go a long way. Everything that we do to our environment can have positive or negative effects that future generations will feel. Let us be mindful of things that could destroy our planet.
Conclusion
Glass recycling, as well as other types of recycling, has a lot of benefits to our society and environment. We can do a lot to help our world. Start by recycling. Glass recycling is, and always will be, worth it!