Almost anything we do, every product we use and everywhere we go, leads to us polluting the environment in one way or another. Driving pollutes the air, sending waste to landfills pollutes the air and land, and growing food using fertilizers and pesticides poisons groundwater as well as surrounding bodies of water.
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One of the easiest ways of cutting back on pollution is recycling. Recycling converts waste materials into new materials and objects. It is the third component of the ‘Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Waste hierarchy and is a vital part of cleaning the environment. This article looks into how recycling could help reduce pollution.
How Does Recycling Help Reduce Pollution?
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An overall reduction in pollution levels
According to research by the University of Central Oklahoma, recycling paper cuts down on air pollution by 73% and water pollution by 35%. Recycling steel reduces 97% of the mining waste produced through the manufacture of virgin resources, and cuts back 86% and 76% on air pollution and water pollution, respectively. Additionally, using recycled glass decreases mining wastes by 80% and air pollution by 20%.
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It protects ecosystems
Recycling reduces the need to grow, harvest and extract raw materials from the earth for additional products. This, therefore, lessens the harmful disruption and damage done to the natural world. It means fewer forests will be cut down, wild animals will be less harmed or displaced, no more diversion of rivers and as such, less pollution of the soil, water and air. Also, if more plastics are recycled, less of them will find their way into the ocean waters, damaging marine life
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It saves energy
Making products from recycled materials requires less energy as compared to making them using raw materials. The huge difference in energy means less pollution. For instance, producing new Aluminum from old products like recycled cans and foil uses 95% less energy than making it from scratch. The figure is 70% with regards to steel. Saving on energy means fewer strains on the power grid, which means less carbon is emitted at the power plant as a result of drawing too much energy
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It reduces the demand for more raw materials
As already mentioned, recycling reduces the need to grow, harvest and extract raw materials from the earth for additional products. As such, if more is recycled, the raw materials from which these products are extracted will not be touched in quite a while.
This is what it means for a reduction in the demand for more raw materials. When these raw materials, such as forests are hunted, the vulnerable people living next to them also suffer, not forgetting the corresponding river systems.
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It is better at it than collecting waste
Landfills might be able to accommodate a lot of waste that has been thrown away there. They might also eliminate a lot of waste than a recycling company can when recycling waste. However, recycling means a new product is arrived at from the waste of another.
Landfills, before they help a product decompose, might take a very long time. At the same time, they will allow leaching which will contaminate or pollute bodies of water. It also results in the production of harmful gases like methane, polluting the air. All this is avoided if you decide to recycle.
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It conserves natural resources
The point of avoiding pollution is to preserve natural resources. Recycling is a wonderful tool that will make new products, and at the same time avoid pollution, by conserving natural resources. For instance, recycling paper and wood saves trees and forests.
Recycling plastic means creating less new plastic which is beneficial for the environment, especially because plastics are made from hydrocarbons, which terribly pollute the environment. Recycling metals could also result in less need for the risky, expensive and damaging mining and extraction of new metal ores.
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Who Contributes to The Pollution The Most?
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Industrial plants and manufacturing activities
Emissions from these plants have to be the biggest culprits of polluting the environment. Industries such as tanneries, lead smelting, mining and ore processing, and chemical and product manufacturing are giant pollutants. The majority process raw materials to get the final product, through the use of toxic chemicals that contain toxic elements like cadmium, lead, chromium and mercury.
When these pollutants end up in underground waters and the soil, they contaminate the water we drink and the food we eat. The by-products of these production processes include harmful gases, like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, that have a greenhouse effect.
Additionally, they pollute the air and could contribute to poor visibility. Some of these gases are also harmful if inhaled and could also produce acid rain, which affects everything it touches, including marine wildlife.
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Fossil fuel combustion
Combusting fossil fuels is the major reason as to why we have smog clouds and bad air quality in urban areas. Such combustion is done in power plants that use fossil fuels to generate heat and emissions from cars and other vehicles. The result is carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, lead, dust particles and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which when released into the air, create smog clouds.
Motor vehicles are responsible for about 75% of carbon monoxide pollution in the US, with the transportation industry causing 14% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Low-income countries also burn charcoal and wood, resulting in carbon monoxides and dioxides, and dust particles.
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Agriculture
This is another significant contributor to pollution in the world. Crop cultivation requires the use of pesticides and fertilizers that slowly poison the soil. They also sip underground and poison groundwater reservoirs and rivers. Livestock cultivation also requires heavily on scarce water resources, could result in overgrazing and is the reason why most forests are being cut down.
Raising them also results in air pollution. For instance, raising cattle for food emits 5% of all greenhouse gas emissions as they release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Cattle are the animal species responsible for the most emissions, representing about 65% of the livestock sector’s emissions
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Humans
How can we forget the impact that humans have on the environment? Humans, in their exploration, have come up with all these technologies, that although benefit us, are taking a toll on the environment. Let us not forget about landfills, where we really love to deposit any trash we have. Landfills grow bigger daily and more waste is buried underground.
Although landfills are supposed to aid trash in decomposing, the truth is not all trash decomposes by itself even for a couple of centuries, like plastics. Landfills emit methane as a by-product of the decomposition process, which is a greenhouse gas, about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat. Decomposing waste could also leach into groundwater streams and contaminate fresh and drinkable water.
