Bins

Why is recycling important?

The world's natural resources are finite, and some are in very short supply.

At a fundamental level:

• Recycling paper and wood saves trees and forests. Yes, you can plant new trees, but you can't replace virgin rainforest or ancient woodlands once they're lost. 
• Recycling plastic means creating less new plastic, which is definitely a good thing, especially as it's usually made from fossil fuel hydrocarbons.
• Recycling metals means there's less need for risky, expensive and damaging mining and extraction of new metal ores.
• Recycling glass reduces the need to use new raw materials like sand – it sounds hard to believe, but supplies of some types of sand are starting to get low around the world.