Recycling of Waste Materials

Recycling is a key concept of modern times in view of continuously depleting energy resources and incessantly accumulating environmental wastes. Primary recycling, also called closed-loop recycling, turns recycled materials into new products of the same type. Secondary recycling or down cycling, on the other hand, recycles materials into new and different products. Even if the difference in costs is small between a recycled product and a new product, recycling helps reducing the overall expenses by reducing the amount of waste that must be incinerated, put in a landfill, or otherwise treated. Once a container of recyclable materials has been delivered to the center, either by a resident or a commercial waste hauler, the recovery center carries out the following steps: Separating—types of paper, plastics, glass, and metals, such as brown glass from green glass bottles Treatment—sending non recyclable materials to a final disposal site, such as an incinerator or a landfill Recovery—sending materials to a business that uses them as raw material, such as steel sent to automakers The steps listed here usually consume less energy than the steps needed to make a product from new raw materials. First, a sufficient amount of material must go into the recycling process to make recycling efficient with respect to both energy and cost. Recycling technology continues to grow, and entrepreneurs have invented new uses for wastes while the recycling industry has found ways to make recycling less expensive and more streamlined.