Recycling and Water Conservation

 

 

Recycling:

Recycling refrers to the process of using waste products to produce new products.  These new products are made by cleaning and reprocessing the the old product into something reusable by the public.  

Recycling is not considered a type of waste prevention. The reason being only waste can be recycled, and that means that waste is still being produced. However, it does reduce the amount of trash being put into the dump.

 

How are Recycling and Water Conservation Linked?

Water conservation encompasses how to reduce the usage of freshwater.

Industry uses a large amount of water with the production of apparel, home furnishings, electronics, plastics, and paper. In the United States close to 5% of all water consumption is used to fuel industry, and also used for the production of many material goods.

When making one rag it takes 17 gallons of water! Not only for the machines, but for the maintenance and health of the plants used to make the material. About 100 gallons of water is used to grow and process a single pound of cotton. To put this in to perspective the average American goes through about 35 pounds of new cotton material each year. That’s roughly 3500 gallons of water just for the use of cotton. That amount of water does not include plastic, metal, paper, glass, batteries, or electronics. The water required to create the laptop your using could wash nearly 70 loads of laundry in a standard machine. 

Recycling and buying recycled goods is one of the best ways to conserve water.

Most people don't consider recycling paper as a means of conserving water, but by recycling one pound of paper you can conserve roughly 3.5 gallons of water.  On average, a dollar worth of paper consumes about 6 gallons of water.

 

How can you Recycle?

At Home- Request a recycling bin from the city that you live in.  You can put all your paper, cardboard, plastics, and glass into the recycle bin. Another important thing to recycle is you batteries, and any electronics. Most cell phone companies offer recycling or even a trade-in program. Batteries are also not accepted in your recycling bin, but some grocery stores such as Target has bins for batteries.

 

What can you Recycle?

These are just a few of the things you can recycle:

Metals- steel cans, tin cans, (such as soup and coffee cans), aluminum cans, aluminum foil, and bake ware

Paper- phone books, newspapers, office papers, and magazines

Glass- pickle jars, jelly jars, and wine bottles

Plastics- milk jugs, Gatorade bottles, plastic ware, shampoo bottles, and detergent bottles

Batteries

Bulbs

Electronics- computer screens, computer monitors, tablet, television, and phones

 

 

 references:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/recycling

http://www.recycling-revolution.com/what-to-recycle.html

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/water-conservation-tips/

 

Pictures:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Water-conservation-stamp-1960.jpg -conservation

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baumwoll-Erntemaschine.jpeg -cotton

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recycling_symbol.svg -recycling