“Do you recycle?”
Sounds like a pretty straight forward question. The reality is that 9 out of 10 people say they would if it were “easier” to understand recycling bins and labels (Recycling Facts and Figures, 2010). Recycling not only takes up time to turn it in (if you want your CRV $ back), but also room in your garage, your side yard or anywhere you can store it to save up enough bottles, cans, and glass to get enough money that is worth it. I get it, what an obstacle!
The real obstacle though, is how products that we should recycle end up where they don’t belong, hurting nature and the Earth as a whole.
How Much Water Does It Take to Recycle?
We accept recycling as an environmental protection duty to reuse product, conserve energy and water use for manufacturing such products. Although not all of us recycle, most of the population recognizes recycling as a positive practice.
It is true that recycling does use water (to clean used products, separating, remanufacturing and processing, bottling and more) (Greentumble, 2018) but it uses less water than manufacturing and using raw materials every time. Take your plastic bottle of water for an example. It takes roughly the same amount of water, if not more, than water bottle holds to manufacture and transport that bottle of water to you to conveniently drink on the go. (GRACE, 2020)
Tips on Making Recycling Easier & More Sustainable (WM)
-Crushing bottles and cans to save room.
-Rinsing recyclables to reduce odor and avoid attracting bugs, pests and animals.
-Use dishwater after cleaning dishes to rinse recyclables to conserve water further.
-Separating types and color for glass will help keep your recycling organized.
-Avoid breaking glass and mixing colors
-Recycled Papers include: mixed papers, magazines/catalogs, mail, brochures/pamphlets, phone books, food boxes like cracker, cereal and cake/brownie mix boxes.
Keep this in mind when you throw away your next bottle instead of disposing it in the recycling.
Plastics, glass, and other man-made products take hundreds or thousands of years to degrade, if they even do decompose entirely. Plastic itself can take 500-1,000 years to decompose. (Thompson, 2006). It takes more water and resources to bottle and transport water for easy access, when it takes just a little more time and effort to incorporate a reusable water bottle that you can use instead and of course…recycle!
Check out Doyle Bros, a commercial and industrial waste collection, processing and recycling business that has been serving areas of Australia since 1989. Our friends over at Doyle Bros understand the importance of proper manufacturing waste disposal and recycling and are helping care for our Earth, one country at a time!
Water is our most valuable resource, and when we flood our lakes and oceans with items that stick around for lifetimes, we put the environment and creatures at risk.
So, do your part and help us recycle those water bottles to better the planet!
Aqua Ultraviolet cares about water health and safety.
Our Advanced UV technology provides protection from harmful contaminants that lurk in your water supply. We have a unit for every application, including your home drinking water.
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Sources and Further Readings:
Recycling facts and figures. (2010). http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/facts.html
Recycle Plastic. GRACE Communications Foundation. (2020). https://www.watercalculator.org/posts/recycle-plastic/
Greentumble. (2018). Step by Step Process of Recycling Plastic.
https://greentumble.com/how-is-plastic-recycled-step-by-step/
Waste Management. Recycling Facts & Tips. https://www.wm.com/location/california/san-joaquin/hughson/facts/index.jsp
Thompson, J. (2006). https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/eau-no-clean-healthy-and-pure-hardly-bottled-water-is-killing-the-planet-6109336.html
