Customers don't care if it even solves the solid-waste problem. It makes them feel good. Buy Smart and Recycle Educated choices by both producers and consumers, followed by efficient recycling, can drastically reduce worldwide pollution. Right now we are recycling only one percent nationwide, although some communities do far better than that, recycling 50 percent or more of their solid waste. Every year, we throw out enough aluminum to quadruple the size of our air fleet, enough steel to literally rebuild Manhattan and enough wood and paper to heat 5 million homes for 200 years.
Recycling saves energy, reduces air and water pollution and limits mining and manufacturing waste.
With current technology we can recycle newspaper, office paper, cardboard, glass bottles, aluminum cans, scrap metals, large appliances, automobile tires and motor oil. But, as stated before, plastic recycling is a dead-end street. The same can be said in comparing a paper grocery bag to a plastic one. Buy Recycled Products Recycling has not really taken place until someone buys a recycled product. Each of us needs to search out and purchase recycled products.