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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 15 February 2025. Converting waste materials into new products This article is about recycling of waste materials. For recycling of waste energy, see Energy recycling. "Recycled" redirects here. For the album, see Recycled (Nektar album). The three chasing arrows of the universal recycling symbol ...
The most suitable materials for closed-loop recycling are aluminum and glass. These are known to maintain their quality throughout many cycles of extraction, production, use, and recycling. [5] For example, aluminum cans can be recycled and turned into new cans with practically no material degradation or waste. [citation needed]
Recycling can be carried out on various raw materials. Recycling is an important part of creating more sustainable economies , reducing the cost and environmental impact of raw materials. Not all materials are easily recycled, and processing recyclable into the correct waste stream requires considerable energy.
The Stanolind Recycling Plant was in operation as early 1947. [32] Another early recycling mill was Waste Techniques, built in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1972. [citation needed] Waste Techniques was sold to Frank Keel in 1978, and resold to BFI in 1981. Woodbury, New Jersey, was the first city in the United States to mandate recycling. [33]
Resource recovery can be enabled by changes in government policy and regulation, circular economy infrastructure such as improved 'binfrastructure' to promote source separation and waste collection, reuse and recycling, [5] innovative circular business models, [6] and valuing materials and products in terms of their economic but also their social and environmental costs and benefits. [7]
Almost all plastic is non-biodegradable and without recycling, spreads across the environment [34] [35] where it causes plastic pollution. For example, as of 2015, approximately 8 million tonnes of waste plastic enters the oceans annually, damaging oceanic ecosystems and forming ocean garbage patches. [36]
Isatou Ceesay (born 1972) is a Gambian activist and social entrepreneur, popularly referred to as the Queen of Recycling. [1] She initiated a recycling movement called One Plastic Bag in the Gambia. Through this movement, she educated women in The Gambia to recycle plastic waste into sellable products that earned them income. [2] [3]
In open-loop recycling, also known as secondary recycling, or downcycling, the quality of the plastic is reduced each time it is recycled, so that the material eventually becomes unrecyclable. It is the most common type. [98] Recycling PET bottles into fleece or other fibres is a common example, and accounts for the majority of PET recycling. [101]