Advantages: Recycling helps to limit the amount of glass, paper and plastic that must be produced.

This will end with less garbage in landfills because it's being reused.

Adds jobs to the economy Slows the consuming of natural resources. You reduce the amount of resources needed to make the same item compared to making it without recycling Makes people environmentally aware Promotes scientific advancements in recyclable and biodegradable materials Makes governments and businesses choose programs and apply policies in consideration of preserving and respecting the environment. You can get money for what you recycle (aluminum just about everywhere, and places that have CRV tax you get it back, sometimes up to $.10 a bottle, etc) It saves natural resources as it takes less energy to make something with recycled material rather something new It saves space in landfills. The items that we recycle are not biodegradable. Save the earth, save animals and save humanity If you recycle paper, trees that make oxygen for us to breath live longer.

If you recycle cans, the energy that would have been used to make more cans is being saved. By saving energy you are cutting down the amount of CO2 being added to the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. So you are slowing down global warming.

It's better for the environment of course, but I think it's just fun -- we don't have recycling where we live now, but our family got a lot out of it when we did in the past -- it is good to know that you're making a difference in the world your children's children will be having children one day and it's good to teach them many things from sorting practice for preschoolers to look at the recycle pile in comparison to the trashcan -- some weeks we'd only have one bag of trash -- it was pretty neat. If the kids are bored they can find boxes and tubes and things to use for projects -- lots of advantages. At one point we didn't have recycling but would pack it up in containers and take it to a public drop off when we'd visit my grandmother in another town -- it was a little trouble but well worth the effort.

Recycling Preserves the Environment The process of recycling protects the environment. For instance, we know that paper is manufactured from trees. As the demand for paper increases, a number of trees are being cut to produce paper. By recycling paper, we can prevent the destruction of forests. Today, a number of forests are being destroyed to meet the ever increasing demand of paper. We can save our natural resources by recycling products made from raw materials. Recycling a ton of mixed paper or newspaper, is equivalent to saving 12 trees.

Recycling Saves Energy Processing raw materials consumes a considerable amount of energy resources. Recycling used materials reduces energy requirements in many manufacturing processes such as refining and mining. Recycling materials like aluminum and glass can greatly reduce the pressure on energy resources.

Recycling Reduces Pollution Pollution means the introduction of hazardous substances in the form of plastics, empty cans, chemicals and ordinary waste into the environment. These substances contaminate our environment. Plastic waste is responsible for causing increased soil and water pollution. Plastic recycling is an effective solution to this problem. The recycling process involves recovering used materials from the plastic waste, which is then used in the manufacturing industry. Recycling can also help reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, thereby helping to mitigate global warming effects. In a study that involved recycling 35,116 tons of material, it was found that the reduction in green gas emissions was equivalent to taking 22,140 cars off the road. Manufacturing plastics and paper from recycled material, requires less amount of energy as compared to making them from new or virgin materials. Additional energy is consumed to extract and transport these virgin materials. Transportation means using vehicles that run on fuels like diesel and gasoline. These fuels are considered the main source of green gas emissions. As recycling conserves energy, this results in less fuel being utilized. Thus, a lower amount of carbon dioxide will be released into the environment.

However, it is observed that benefits of recycling outweigh the risks related with the mismanagement of dump sites. The government is also implementing effective waste management. So everyone who wants to preserve and protect our planet, they must take the initiative to recycle waste material. Taking everyday trash to your nearest recycling center can definitely make a positive impact on the environment.

An advantage is recycling can be profitable. Recycling also uses up less of the earth's natural material such as oil and bauxite (used to make aluminum). For instance it takes 3 tonnes of bauxite to make one tonne of aluminum. Recycling that 1 tonne of coke cans will save that 2 tonnes of bauxite being landfilled, where it produces methane, and it will produce 70% less carbon dioxide.

The advantages of recycling are well known; to reuse whatever we can so that it doesn't end up wasted in a landfill or worse, end up polluting the environment and to reduce the use of new raw materials. Recycling is good for the earth.

Recycling paper means we don't have to cut down so many trees. Recycling aluminum means we don't use so much energy producing new cans and products, and we don't have to dig so much out of the ground, where it's getting scarcer anyway. Recycling plastic uses less energy than it takes to make it from its base material, which is oil. The world is rapidly running out of oil. Recycling glass saves energy as it is much easier to make new bottles from broken glass than from the original ingredients. All these things mean we use fewer natural resources and we don't put so much carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air where it contributes to global climate change.

Disadvantages: Separate factories must be set up for the recycling of materials, and this will just cause more pollution and energy consumption for transport, sorting, cleaning and storage; Like for example all the extra bins you have in your back garden, One for normal rubbish, one for tins, glass etc, paper basket, food waste and a garden waste one, and all of these extra bins means more trucks coming to pick them up. Pollutants produced by the recycling process itself, including chemical stews when breaking down different products; Some recycling is not cost-efficient and annually results in a net loss. It costs $50-60 to landfill a ton versus $150+/- to recycle a ton (of what?). Only the recycling of aluminum really makes any money. Reclaiming metals is feasible and fairly easy, whereas plastics and paper are expensive, wasteful and overly difficult; Adds to taxes, and is a tax subsidy costing 8 billion a year in the USA alone; Creation of low-quality jobs. Jobs include sifting through garbage to separate it, dealing with the toxins from the breakdown process, and other manual-intensive labor tasks;

A considerable percentage of items marked as recyclable end up trashed or burned anyway due to poor quality, contaminants, lack of resources able to handle that item in a specific region or recycling installation, etc.; Takes time and effort to do

Are there any harmful effects of recycling? There can be a few, if the sites, where recycling is done, are not managed properly. As lot of debris is collected everyday for recycling, and so the recovery sites can become unhygienic. Abandoned dump sites can severely damage the surrounding environment. Harmful chemicals in the trash, can mix into water and soil. This can cause water and soil pollution and harm plants and fish in the streams and lakes. When it gets mixed with rainwater, a poisonous mixture known as leachate, is formed. This mixture can be highly dangerous if it reaches the water supplies. When rainwater falls on open dumps, most of the contaminated water (leachate) percolates deep into the ground and pollutes the ground water. The issues with the effects of recycling paper are often associated with cleanliness and transportation. Paper recycling can be a bit costly, as additional industrial processes such as bleaching, are required to make the paper reusable. There is no guarantee that the new recycled product obtained will be of good quality. This is because recycling involves manufacturing products from used materials. Also, in the process of bleaching, harsh chemicals are used that can cause health problems on exposure. Although many find plastic convenient for everyday use, it is quite difficult to recycle this material. There are different kinds of plastic and one has to sort them systematically so as make a useful recycled product. One cannot simply manufacture a new product by combining different kinds of plastic. The biggest disadvantage to recycling is that it gives the consuming public a false sense of 'security'; a sense that they're doing something to benefit the environment. In fact, the only real benefit to the environment is to slow the damage from human folly. The folly still goes on. Recycling is only STEP ONE in a journey of many miles. Unless the humans realize how they are contributing to the damage and those other many steps are taken, recycling is of little value. Yes, recycling can be bad for the environment. In fact, except for materials like metal and some glass, recycling is almost always bad for the environment. Need proof? There is actually a lot. One of the best places to start is with a report from Perc.org, called the Eight Great Myths of Recycling. You can find a copy at the link below. Here is an example from that paper, "One argument made for recycling notes that we live on a finite planet. With a growing population, we must, it seems, run out of resources. Whether the resource in question is trees, oil, or bauxite, the message is the same: The only way to extend the lives of natural resource stocks is by more recycling." "In fact, we are not running out of natural resources.While recycling has the potential to extend the lives of raw material stocks, other activities, long practiced in the private sector, are already doing that. Available stocks of those resources are actually growing, and there is every reason to expect such growth to continue if the private sector is allowed to continue performing its functions." Consider forests. The amount of new growth that occurs each year in forests exceeds by a factor of twenty the amount of wood and paper that is consumed by the world each year (Lomborg 2001,115). Perhaps partly as a result, temperate forests, most of which are in North America, Europe, and Russia, actually have expanded

over the last 40 years." You get the idea. What the paper is referring to is the fact that paper production has actually increased the number of trees being planted in the world (see the link below for one argument about this point). Conversely, (and here is where recycling can hurt the environment) because of paper recycling we are actually planting fewer trees, and since paper recycling is a toxic manufacturing process, it releases damaging chemicals into the environment.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_and_disadvantages_of_recycling#ixzz1sHGJ 0M42