You may be sitting at a desk made from wood cut from natural forests or plantations, or from metal that was mined, or plastic that was derived from petroleum products. You may have on your desk a notepad with paper made from wood chips from forests. The building you are in will have concrete, made from rock, sand and lime, perhaps brick, of clay, wood from forests, or metal beams from mines. We all know that these substances are manufactured from raw materials that are mined, collected from the earth or from forests, or are farmed, and that all these activities are energy-intensive and often environmentally damaging. We also know that we generate a huge amount of waste that must be somehow disposed of.
Recycling is simply common sense.
We would not only save on the cost of waste disposal and logging, but we would also save a few much-needed trees in the process. Furthermore, it takes more energy to make paper from scratch from wood chips than it does to make it from old paper. Making aluminium by recycling cans uses approximately 5 percent of the energy required to refine and process aluminium from ores, not to mention the cost of mining and transportation itself. The land need not be torn and blown up to extract that ore, and all the chemicals used in the refining process need not be used since the aluminium from cans is already refined. There can be no argument against recycling when it comes to saving money and the environment.