It’s only recently that society at large has started paying more attention to what we leave behind. The amount of materials labelled as “disposable” has become significantly reduced, and for good reason. Though the option of simply throwing out your metal products may seem much more practical from a limited perspective, when it comes to the big picture, recycling can really help us out in the long run. There are quite a number of reasons why you should recycle your metal instead of disposing of it – here are five of them.
Resource Preservation
This is the main reason behind any kind of recycling, not just that of metal. Through recycling, we can reuse old recourses that we’ve already used before, thereby avoiding relying on digging up the Earth for more materials – and those are finite. But it’s not just about natural resources – think about the amount of bin bags and the fact that you’ll be using up less of them, saving you both time and money!
Energy Efficiency
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, recycling can help greatly reduce our dependence on new natural resources. As the demand decreases, so does the amount of energy used to process the excavation, and recycling itself uses up much less energy than that. By recycling metal, we can conserve up to 92% of the energy we currently use for metal.
Emission Reduction
Extracting metals from the Earth’s crust is one of the leading causes of increased carbon emissions that have become a real problem lately, contributing greatly to the phenomenon of global warming. Recycling can greatly reduce the amount of carbon emissions and, as a direct result, air pollution. Though it won’t do much when it comes to fixing the damage that’s already done, it’s a great way to stop any further damage from happening.
The Economic Factor
As recycling is a much cheaper process than metal extraction, focusing on recycling can allow the government to save money in all the right places. It goes without saying that this can allow them to allocate that money into other aspects of the economy that may require their attention. A better economy means more jobs, better pays, and a more stable life for everyone.
Prices
One other long-term result of focusing on recycling is the price of metal. Eventually, the number of people recycling metals on a regular basis should be in the majority, which in turn will lead to the reduction of price of recycled metal production. As a result, products will be made from recycled metal more often and be available at a lower price for sale. Everyone’s a winner!