The process of converting waste into reusable things in order to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, curb the consumption of fresh raw materials, and energy, check air pollution and water pollution etc. is called recycling. Nowadays, many organizations and communities make recycling easy by placing labeled (recyclable/non-recyclable) containers for public use, which saves the time consumed for separating the recyclable and non-recyclable materials. Have you seen the Bottle Recycling Machines at Railway stations? This is a part of Indian Railway’s move to Go Green. The crushed bottles are sent for recycling to fiber manufacturing factories and then used as raw material for making carpets, clothes and grocery bags which we use in our daily life.

There are uncountable benefits of recycling, and with the advent of numerous technologies making even more materials recyclable, we can clean up our mother Earth in a better way with everyone’s help. Through recycling, we can not only benefit the environment but also can affect the nation’s economy positively. One of the most important benefits of recycling is that it conserves natural resources like water, timber and minerals. Today, in our daily life, we are using tons of items which are made up of recycled materials.

• By recycling, we can prevent millions of tons of material from entering landfills and save space for non-recyclable garbage. Landfills not only pollute our environment but also damage the beauty of our cities/villages.
• The more we recycle, the more we can control air pollution and water pollution by reducing the release of pollutants into water and air.
• Recycling lessens greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Recycling paper reduces emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. When paper is not recycled, 80% of it goes to landfill, where its decomposition produces methane, which has 21 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.
• Recycling reduces litter overflow helping preserve the Earth’s beauty.
• In terms of energy saving, with the energy saved from a single recycled glass bottle, we can power a single light bulb for up to four hours.
• Recycling conserves natural resources like minerals, raw materials, trees, etc.

However, recycling is not only the responsibility of tree-huggers, it is something so important that all of us should take into consideration for several reasons. It not only gives us a better place to live in but also makes our economy healthier. It is not going to make our life easier immediately, but it will keep us out of trouble and help us proudly say that we are contributing to the betterment of our society, environment as well as the economy.