Recycling Plastics – Creating Jobs And Reversing Climate Change

Two frequently discussed topics in our world today are jobs, or the lack thereof, and climate change. Did you know that adding all your plastic to your curbside recycling is helping improve both? Here's how.

• Helping People by Creating Jobs

You may think that being a conscientious recycler just helps out the environment. Well, while it certainly does accomplish that objective, it also helps out people, too. Recycling creates a chain of tasks that workers need to take care of.

Your curbside recycling tubs need to be emptied into a truck, then hauled to a plastics recycling facility. At this recycling facility, there are a number of jobs, including sorting the recyclable plastic by class and categorizing these different grades for various uses.

Once all plastic containers, jugs, and packing are sorted into reusable categories, it is then shipped to places where several things can happen. Some recyclable plastic is hard to up-cycle, so it's simply melted down to produce heat energy for other types of manufacturing.

More resilient types of recycled plastic are compressed and liquefied to make pieces for new products. These pieces need to be handled and cleaned, and often times many parts need to be put together to make a new plastic product. Each of these steps is carried out by businesses that need to hire people to perform a range of jobs.

Conversely, tossing one plastic jug into your normal garbage will only require at most two steps. It will be picked up and dumped into a garbage truck, then hauled off where it will be deposited in a landfill.

You not only add toxic things to the environment, but you are also sort of stealing a few jobs from other people at the same time. By recycling every single thing that you can, you are not only being environmentally conscious, but you'll also be helping people by creating jobs.

• Curb Climate Change

When you make the effort to carry out your curbside recycling tubs, you are being a part of the solution to global climate change, not just another piece of the problem. The potential danger of global climate change is compelling the world to consider far-reaching and dramatic steps to reduce the pollution levels in an effort to slow down, if not eliminate, global warming.

Creating a new plastic bottle, or anything made from plastic for that matter, takes energy, costs money, and creates pollution. Recycling that same material uses up less of our natural resources, is less expensive, and reduces plastics pollution in a number of ways. One of those is a reduction in the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, escalating the amount of carbon dioxide and worsening the greenhouse effect.

Since the greenhouse effect has been shown to be a huge factor in global warming, any reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide released into our atmosphere will be a step towards slowing down global warming. Recycling your plastics is one step you can take to reach that goal.

So if you've ever felt like your recycling efforts don't count for much, think about these two facts. You're giving people—maybe a lot of people—a job, plus you're doing your part in helping to turn back the swell of global warming. Just these two benefits alone make curbside recycling of all your plastic items even more sensible. For more information on your recycling options, contact a company like Industrial Services Inc.