Why buy recycled goods?

Recycling at home has not actually taken place until we buy or use products made from recycled materials. For recycling to be economically viable and recycling schemes to be successful, there must be markets into which collectors of waste can sell their materials.

Buying recycled creates a demand for the collected material, aiding the development of the material's reprocessing infrastructure and therefore increasing opportunities for recycling. As well as helping the environment buying recycled also helps to generate investment in new industries and creates new jobs. The process of buying recycled is called "closing the loop" as a product cannot be described as recycled until it has been incorporated into a new product thus coming full circle.

Element Green Recycling was established in 2005 to help people reduce, reuse and recycle their waste. Our slogan “Helping you make recycling second nature” is at the core of our business.

Retailers respond to consumer pressure so if there is a demand for recycled products then the demand for waste materials will be boosted. This will help set-up strong markets for materials collected in your local recycling schemes and encourage retail stores to stock more recycled products.

Look out for the Buy Recycled logo.

Sustainable resource management, through recycling and similar activities like water and energy conservation and green buildings is no longer a personal decision but a necessary practice in a world with a growing population and a finite resource base.

When recycled materials are used in place of virgin materials during manufacturing, we avoid the environmental damage caused by mining for metals, drilling for petroleum and harvesting trees.

Recycling saves energy and reduces greenhouse gases

For every one million tons of material recycled rather than landfilled we save the energy equivalent of:

• Aluminium: 35,680,000 barrels of oil
• Glass: 460,000 barrels of oil
• Newspaper: 2,920,000 barrels of oil
• Office paper: 1,760,000 barrels of oil
• Mixed residential paper: 4,010,000 barrels of oil
• PET (plastic): 9,100,000 barrels of oil
• HDPE (plastic): 8,870,000 barrels of oil

Recycling saves money

It is untrue that recycling costs more than disposal. Selling recyclable materials offsets the extra costs of collecting and processing recyclables, making recycling the cheaper option for the community.

Landfills and incinerators are major sources of pollution

Landfills sites are the largest source of methane production, a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, whilst Incinerators produce hazardous air pollutants including known cancer-causing substances. Gas from Incinerators contain a mixture of pollutants such as lead, cadmium, arsenic, chromium and mercury a powerful neurotoxin. All these pollutants can contaminate groundwater. Once groundwater is contaminated it is virtually impossible to clean up.

Recycling creates jobs

According to WRAP for every one job at a landfill there are ten jobs in recycling processing and 25 jobs in recycling based manufacturers.

Our current system of one-way is simply not sustainable

As populations continue to increase and seek the affluence and consumerism of the Western culture there will be increasing conflict over our limited supply of resources, everything from precious metals to clean water. Over the past couple of years China's rapid growth has driven the price of metal to all-time records, levels high enough to entice criminals to steal manhole covers, aluminium siding from homes and copper wire and pipes.

There are violent ongoing conflicts in Africa over rights for precious minerals in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, and for coltan (the mineral needed to make our mobile phones and computer chips) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Google coltan and see what pops up in the image tab.