The benefits of recycling in Texas
In total in 2022 Texas recycled around 0.4 million tons of household waste, which helped avoid the emission of 0.3 million tonnes of CO2 during the same year.
Pollution and global warming
Recycling is in fact one of the levers of environmental protection. It helps both limit global warming by reducing the proportion of waste incinerated and the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, sulfur and nitrogen. And on the other hand, it helps to reduce pollution due to landfilling.
The entire recycling process involves much less resource burning than would otherwise be required in the manufacturing of new products.
Preservation of natural resources
For example, one ton of recycled plastic avoids the need for 800 kg of crude oil. An essential solution when we know that 90% of global energy consumption is based on non-renewable resources.
As for the Texas ecosystems from which we draw most of our materials, they necessarily undergo considerable pressures which recycling manages to alleviate, in varying proportions.
In Texas, for example, 55% of paper and cardboard are recycled, as are 64% of glass and 27% of plastics. A process that saves significant quantities of water linked to the manufacturing of new materials, and preserves forest ecosystems by avoiding the felling of tens of thousands of trees each year. Each ton of recycled paper helps prevent the disappearance of 17 trees.
Enough to protect the limited resources of our Earth, and give future generations the opportunity to benefit from them in turn, and to avoid this waste management nightmare.
Saving space in landfills
Recycling avoids filling Texan landfills unnecessarily, saving space for non-recyclable waste that cannot find a place elsewhere. Today, around 2 billion tons of waste end up in landfills around the world each year, the equivalent of 800,000 Olympic swimming pools. A figure which should rise to 3.4 billion by 2050 according to the World Bank, if current conditions persist.
Energy savings
Energy-intensive perhaps, but recycling turns out to be much less energy-intensive than the extraction and transformation of new raw materials. A reduction in energy consumption means a reduction in pollution and more limited environmental damage.
Cost reduction
And then, in theory, recycling presents economic advantages for Texas since it avoids the research and transformation of raw materials, and makes it possible to speed up production chains. Using recycled materials is much more affordable than creating new materials. On the scale of an entire country, this can lead to significant savings.
Job creation
The sector is a formidable vector of jobs which alone brings together several million employees around the world. Through the creation of recycling plants and the establishment of collection and delivery systems, the sector has seen the emergence of a new dynamic economy. In the United States alone, the recycling and reuse industry is divided among 56,000 establishments employing more than 1.1 million people, generating gross revenues of more than $236 billion.
And yet, despite very clear progress, the majority of what could be recycled is not yet, according to junk disposal and recycling experts at USA Dumpster Rentals Arlington.
In particular, the costs of waste management have literally exploded in recent years, while the price of oil has rarely been so low. The manufacture of new materials then appears to be much more profitable than the development of the recycling sector.
Another major obstacle is voluntary or involuntary sorting errors. It must be said that even with the best will in the world, the instructions for selective sorting are still unclear for many households.