Metals, glass, building materials, clay ceramics and most plastics are made from limited natural resources.
Some items made from these materials can be reused, and this saves the most energy and reduces the impact on the environment.
For example, glass bottles only need to be washed and sterilised before they can be filled again. Other products cannot be reused in this way, but they can be recycled.
Advantages of recycling
The advantages of recycling compared to producing materials and objects from natural resources include:
fewer quarries and mines are needed to extract finite reserves of metal ores
less crude oil needs to be extracted from the crust as a raw material for making plastics
less energy is needed for recycling compared with making a new product from natural resources, so the emission of greenhouse gases is reduced
the amount of waste that is disposed of in landfill is reduced
Disadvantages of recycling
Disadvantages of recycling arise from the recycling process itself:
the collection and transport of used items needs organisation, workers, vehicles and fuel
it can be difficult to sort different metals from one another
the sorted metal may need to be transported to where it can be turned into ingots