Types of Recycling

Types of Recycling

Recycling involves processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from land filling) by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse gas emissions as compared to virgin production. Recycling is a key component of modern waste reduction and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" waste hierarchy.

Recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, metal, plastic, textiles, and electronics. So there have designed bins for these materials and are known as a glass recycle bin, paper bins, metal recycling bins, plastic bins etc etc. Although similar in effect, the composting or other reuse of biodegradable waste – such as food or garden waste – is a different kind of recycling as these materials are typically not reused again.

In a strict sense, recycling of a material would produce a fresh supply of the same material, for example used office paper to more office paper, or used foamed polystyrene to more polystyrene. However, this is often difficult or too expensive (compared with producing the same product from raw materials or other sources), so "recycling" of many products or materials involves their reuse in producing different materials (e.g., paperboard) instead. Another form of recycling is the salvage of certain materials from complex products, either due to their intrinsic value (e.g., lead from car batteries, or gold from computer components), or due to their hazardous nature (e.g., removal and reuse of mercury from various items).

For more information on the different types of recycling you can see the below subjects

Concrete and Aggregate recycling

Your local recycling centres in the UK can be found at the following link

For a full list of things we most commonly use and answers if they can be recycled