Recycling is important for several reasons:
(i) Recycling conserves natural resources. Some of these natural resources such as oil, natural gas and minerals are non-renewable resources. Simply put, they don’t get replaced as we pull them out of the ground. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.
(ii) Recycling conserves landfill space. Landfill space will last longer if we only put items that are not recyclable into them. It costs a great deal of money to build a landfill and we need to be careful how much and how fast we fill them up.
(iii) Recycling employs people. Recycling employs people who (a) collect the recyclable material, (b) process the material or get it ready to sell to a manufacturer, (c) transport the materials to factories where it will be turned into new products, (d) take the material and manufacture it into new products, (e) manufacture equipment and products used by the recycling industry, and (f) manage local, state and federal government recycling programs and private and non-profit recycling programs.
(iv) Recycling conserves energy. Without question, recycling conserves the energy that would be necessary to create the same product from its raw resource.
(v) Recycling reduces our dependence on overseas natural resources. This is important in two very important ways, (a) it reduces our dependence on overseas oil and gas which has national security implications and (b) it reduces our foreign trade deficit which is important to the strength of our economy.