recovery and reuse
Environmental issues
Recycling reduces the demand for raw materials. This means less needs mining, quarrying or logging. Many parts of the world have been blighted by mining and quarrying, which destroy the natural environment and wildlife habitats and may cause environmental and health problems for local people.
Also transporting raw materials around the world uses fossil fuels and has an environmental impact. Although some materials for recycling need to be transported around the UK, the impact of this is significantly less than that of transporting raw materials from often remote locations in other parts of the world.
In many cases recycling uses less energy than producing goods from virgin material, and also results in fewer emissions. The manufacture of bags made from recycled rather than virgin polythene reduces energy consumption by two-thirds, produces only a third of the sulphur dioxide and half of the nitrous oxide, uses only one-eighth of the water, and reduces carbon dioxide generation.
> This document was last modified: 29 August 2006
