To a lot of people, recycling is becoming automatic. It doesn’t take extra effort to place a piece of paper, an empty drinks can or plastic bottle in the recycling rather than rubbish bin. But what if we didn’t recycle? What if we chucked out items and only used brand new paper and bottles?

Only so much land to fill

Rubbish that is thrown away doesn’t actually go away, it’s buried in great big pits and then covered up with earth. We’ve been disposing of our waste like this for a long time and, not surprisingly, we’re running out of land to fill with our rubbish. Experts warn that by 2018 at the latest, the UK will have run out of space to bury rubbish.

So, there really aren’t any other choices. Recycling waste and cutting down on the amount of waste created in the first place is the only option.

Chopping down trees

By landfilling rather than recycling products, new ones would need to be made from scratch. So that means chopping down trees to make paper products, extracting lime and silica from the ground to make glass, mining aluminium to make cans, and steel to make metal products. Plus, factories need to be powered by coal and gas to manufacture these materials – both are fossil fuels which can’t be replaced and will one day run out too.

In the air

It takes energy to collect raw materials and to turn those materials into new products. Recycling an aluminium can takes 95% less energy than it does to make a new one. Recycling paper takes 70% less energy than it does to produce new paper. Recycling a plastic bottle uses only 12.5% of the energy it takes to make a new bottle. And recycling a glass bottle uses 25% less energy than it takes to produce a new one!

And, scientists think that waste in landfill sites is responsible for releasing 700 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air.

No choice left

What this all amounts to, what scientists have been telling us for years, and why the government has set targets for improving recycling and reducing emissions, is that recycling is a necessity, not an option.

The country is running out of land to bury waste in and one day we will run out of materials to take from the earth.

Plus, scientists are sure that the amount of greenhouse gases humans have released into the atmosphere, along with other human actions, are responsible for climate change, which in turn is having an affect on life for people on earth.

So, next time you see a friend or family member throw out something that can be recycled, you’ll know what to say!