Materials | McCoy Recycling (2024)

FAQs

Is recycling enough to save the environment? ›

Recycling provides many benefits to our environment. By recycling our materials, we create a healthier planet for ourselves and future generations. Conserve natural resources: Recycling reduces the need to extract resources such as timber, water, and minerals for new products.

Aluminum cans are among the most recyclable materials because they are 100% recyclable and can be reprocessed multiple times. Recycling aluminum uses only about 5% of the energy required for smelting, making it the material with the highest recycling energy savings of any major material.

Recycling alone isn't enough to solve the global plastic waste problem. Plastic takes significant natural resources and takes hundreds of years to break down. In doing so, it leeches harmful chemicals into the air, soil, and water supplies.

Iron and steel are the world's most recycled materials, and among the easiest materials to reprocess, as they can be separated magnetically from the waste stream.

Recycling Can Cause Environmental Damage

Similarly, recycling plastic can release harmful pollutants into the air and water. While recycling is still better for the environment than simply throwing materials in the trash, it is not a perfect solution and can still contribute to pollution.

Many people believe recycling is the ultimate antidote to climate change. But is it? Not really. According to research at the University of Leeds, recycling ranked low on a list of effective actions that an individual could take to fight climate change.

Window panes, mirrors, light bulbs and tableware are impractical to recycle. Bottles and jars are usually fine. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) are recyclable, but contain a small amount of mercury and shouldn't be treated as common household bulbs.

6 plastic are items like disposable cups, take-out food containers, packing peanuts, egg cartons and Styrofoam insulation. No. 6 plastic technically can be reused and recycled, but the process is difficult and costly, and not widely used. Most curbside recycling programs will not accept polystyrene.

What percentage of my blue bin recyclables ACTUALLY gets recycled? WM estimates that it recycles 70-80% of the items that come through their Sun Valley facility. And of the stuff that's not recycled, “the vast majority … didn't belong there in the first place,” says WM Southern California President Mike Hammer.

What is the main problem with not recycling? ›

Without recycling, more waste would be sent to landfills, which are already overflowing in many parts of the world. This would create a significant environmental problem, as landfills take up space and generate greenhouse gas emissions.

A global survey conducted by the World Economic Forum, Qualtrics, and SAP found that people fail to recycle because of a lack of trust in recycling programs.

There are a wide range of materials that can be recycled through your curbside recycling program. These consist of obvious materials, including paper and glass, as well as less obvious materials, including most forms of metal, and even food: Paper including newspapers, magazines, and mixed paper.

Paper towels, napkins, paper plates, and tissues are all paper products but unlike most paper items, they cannot be recycled. Just like pizza boxes, these items come in contact with food wastes, greases, and possibly bodily fluids, and are hard to "clean" during the recycling process.

Steel is the most recycled material by weight. “Steel can continually be recycled because of the chemical composition of its core properties (iron, carbon) and strength,” says Steven Torres, CEO of Metal Carports.

The ugly truth is that many "recyclables" sent to recycling plants are never recycled. The worst is plastic. Even Greenpeace now says, "Plastic recycling is a dead-end street." Hoffman often trucks it to a landfill.

Using recycled glass and certain plastics instead of virgin materials can reduce environmental impacts more than 50 percent. Recycled paper and aluminum reduce environmental impacts between 70-85 percent. And these reductions add up.

Reusing an item is also better than recycling it, as less energy is consumed in order to make and recycle one item that someone used over a period of time than two or three or four of the same item in that same window. So here is a list of ways to first reduce, then reuse your items before you recycle them.

Recycling is an energy-intensive process that becomes more costly as additional steps such as post-consumer selection and washing are added. The new plastic is still relatively cheap to produce and creates a competitive environment in which added costs to the process make recycled plastic significantly more expensive.