Why Should I Recycle?

Recycling needs people to collect materials, process them, reuse them and remake them, which means jobs at every step and billions of dollars in wages and tax revenues around the country. If we can collect more and better-quality material, more of those jobs could be right here in NWA. Untapped fuels for the region’s economic engine are waiting in our trash, and in many cases, catching those materials costs less than tossing them out. 

Every plastic bottle, metal can, cardboard box or stack of paper that’s recycled back to manufacturers replaces the trees that would otherwise be cut, the fossil fuels and metals that would be mined, and the energy that would be used. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates recycling and diverting waste from landfills keeps more than 100 million tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere each year. It also keeps all of those cans and bottles out of our fields, fishing ponds and forests.  

Not recycling is just a waste. What do a farmer using an old truck for decades, a shop owner budgeting every dollar, and a family managing a busy schedule all have in common? They know the value of stretching a limited resource, whether it’s a tool, money or time. Some recyclable materials can be reused once or a few times; others can loop back essentially forever. Recycling manages those materials more wisely by striving for the maximum value in every scrap.