Why Recycle?

Everything we use or wear is made from raw materials which have either been taken out of the ground or grown. For instance aluminium is extracted from a mineral called bauxite that is mined in parts of Australia and South America, glass made from sand and limestone, and paper from trees.

The process of extraction or mining, growing and cropping, can have irreversible and detrimental effects on the local and global environment. Significant amounts of fossil fuel are used in the machinery and vehicles needed to extract and transport the raw materials. Pollution of the air, water courses and land can lead to sterilization of areas of land.

Given the environmental (and financial) costs incurred it is common sense that, once raw materials are recovered, best use is made of the materials for as long as possible. Recycling is a way to achieve this, particularly as, on balance, recycling materials used less energy and makes less pollution than first recovery of the raw material.

Of course the environmental /economic cost- benefit equation is not a straightforward one. There are many factors that have to be considered, some of which cannot easily be measured or given a financial value (the visual impact of a plume of smoke for example). There may be instances where the balance clearly does not favour recycling. On the island one such example discussed later is that of plastic. Other areas may be more difficult to assess and decisions taken on whether to recycle have to be based as much on political will as on identifiable financial savings.

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