Does the transportation and reprocessing of recyclables outweigh the energy savings?
Whether hauling waste to the landfill or to a recycling facility, transportation is required. While landfilling takes waste to its grave, recycling allows materials to have a new life cycle. Harvesting, extracting, and processing the raw materials used to manufacture new products is an energy-intensive activity. Reducing or nearly eliminating the need for these processes, therefore, achieves huge savings in energy. Recycling aluminum cans, for example, saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from its virgin source, bauxite. The amount of energy saved differs by material, but almost all recycling processes achieve significant energy savings compared to production using virgin materials. Visit the EPA site for more information on Transportation and Recycling.
Related Questions
- Top of Page 9. How do I measure the true energy savings from eCOOLogy if I experience a change in other equipment usage (lights, business hours, more computers, less computers)?
- Is every-other-week curbside collection of recyclables worth the energy savings in gas?
- Does the transportation and reprocessing of recyclables outweigh the energy savings?
