Recycling saves energy, natural resources and landfill space. In 1990, Americans threw away over 1 million tons of aluminum cans and foil, more than 11 million tons of glass bottles and jars, over 4 and a half million tons of office paper, and nearly 10 million tons of newspaper. Almost all of this material could be recycled, cutting down on the environmental damage caused by mining, logging, and manufacturing raw materials, while decreasing the amount of garbage being dumped. The average American generates 3.5 pounds of garbage every day for a national total of over 150 million tons per year. Over 70 percent of this waste could be recycled using existing technologies.
Energy Usage. Global warming, acid rain, and oil spills are problems directly related to our extravagant use of energy. Three percent of our nation's energy is used to produce packaging materials, such as bottles and cans. By recycling aluminum it is possible to save 95 percent of the energy that it would take to manufacture new products from raw materials. In other words, recycling an aluminum can saves as much energy as if the can were half full of gasoline. Americans throw away about 35 billion aluminum cans every year -- enough to rebuild our entire commercial airfleet four times over. If all these cans were recycled, we would save an amount of energy equal to 150 Exxon Valdez oil spills every year. In 1988, Americans set an all time high by recycling 42.5 billion cans -- 54.6 percent of the total. This alone saved enough energy to supply power for the city of Boston for one full year.
For every ton of paper that is manufactured from recycled pulp, 17 trees are saved and 3 cubic yards of landfill space avoid fill. With paper making up over 40 percent of our municipal waste stream, recycling could extend the lives of our existing dumps considerably. For recycling to work, however, it is important that there is a market for the new product. The U.S. uses about 40 percent of the world's newsprint supply, yet only 14 percent of this paper is made from recycled fiber. Recycled paper uses 64 percent less energy to manufacture than virgin paper and produces only one-quarter the air pollution.
At present, more newspapers are recycled than recycled newsprint bought, causing a glut in the market for recycled newsprint. Barriers to increased recycling include federal subsidies to the timber industry that make the price of virgin paper artificially low. A tax credit for those manufacturers who use recycled materials could offset this perverse incentive for using virgin materials. A worldwide paper shortage is creating opportunities for community economic development through small scale paper manufacturing plants located near the source of supply for waste paper. For every million Americans who recycle, some 1,500 manufacturing jobs are created.
STS Actions.
• Ask students to:
1.make a list of the advantages of recycling paper, aluminum, steel, and plastics.2. how recycling saves energy.
3. what would happen if nothing was recycled.
Use the results to identify misconceptions, and as a starters for the early lessons in a recycling module.
• Tell the students that the U.S. produces about a third of the world's newsprint supply (about 13 million tons per year---yet only 14% is made from recycled fiber. According to some estimates for every ton of recycled newsprint that is used instead of virgin paper:
q 17 trees are savedq 3 cubic yards of paper avid being landfilled
q About 25 percent less energy is used
q 74 percent less air pollution is produced
q 58 percent less water is used.
Have the student do some "if-then" thinking. What would happen to the forest population of trees if the amount of recycled paper produced doubled from its present value? How would this effect land fill space? What impact would it have on energy usage?
• Have students investigate the environmental impact of the production of their local newspaper. They should call the newspaper, and ask the following questions:
1). How many tons of newsprint does your paper use per year? (A) ____tons per year.2). What percentage of the paper is recycled fiber? (B) _____percent recycled fiber.
Now they can make the following calculations to determine how many trees-worth of newsprint are used, effect on landfills, and energy usage.
(1). To find out how many tons of recycled newsprint your paper company uses, multiply (A) by (B) and divide by 100.
(A) ____ X (B) ____ /100 = (C) ____ tons of recycled newsprint.
(2). To calculate how many tons of newsprint are made from virgin paper, subtract (C) from (A).
(A) _____ - (C) ____ = (D) ____ tons of virgin newsprint.
(3). To find out how many trees-worth of newsprint the newspaper company uses in one year, multiply (D) by 17 trees.
(D) ____ X 17 = (E) ____trees.
(4) To figure out how much waste paper could avoid landfill if the newspaper used all recycled fiber, multiply (D) by 3 cubic yards.
(D) ___ X 3 = (F) _____