Household Recycling

Most communities in the United States have set up recycling programs to conserve resources and reduce the amount of waste going into landfills. Specific recycling procedures may vary from community to community, but the following list identifies some common ways to deal with commonly recycled items. Check with your local program for accurate information about procedures in your community.

Common Recycling Steps

Glass

• Remove the lid
• Wash the container
• Sort by color

Tin cans

• Rinse
• Remove the top and bottom lids
• Crush the can flat

Newspapers and magazines

• Stack
• Bundle with twine or string

Plastic

• Rinse
• Sort by recycle number found on bottom of container

Cardboard

• Flatten boxes

Aluminum, paper, plastic bags, gray board from cereal boxes, etc.

• Sort

Water Use and Conservation

Americans use an incredible amount of water every day. A toilet averages six gallons of water with every flush, and a big load of laundry in a top-loading washer requires up to 35 gallons of water. Approximately 400 billion gallons of water are used in America every day. Only about .003 percent of the Earth's water is available for use. The rest is either saltwater, locked up in polar ice caps or located too deep in the ground to retrieve. If the entire world's supply of water were represented by 26 gallons, then our usable supply of fresh water would be one-half teaspoon. Although natural systems can continually recycle this fresh water, the rate at which we use water is a growing concern.

Much of the water we use every day is groundwater that fills the spaces between rocks and soil particles beneath the ground. The biggest source of groundwater is rain and snow that has seeped down into the soil. This trickle-down process takes time, however, as deep groundwater supplies may require hundreds of years to be replenished. In many areas of the United States (and the world), the rate at which groundwater is being used far outpaces the rate at which it can be replenished. Whether our water supplies come from groundwater (as does half the drinking water in the United States) or from lakes, reservoirs or streams, using too much water too fast can cause problems for people and wildlife.

Through dams, reservoirs and wells, people constantly try to increase the availability of fresh water. If everyone made an effort to conserve water by making a few changes in their daily routines, huge amounts of water could be saved. For example, by installing a water-saving shower head, each person could save 5,000 gallons a year.

Natural Resources

Natural resources are defined as the raw materials we use for cooking, housing, transportation, heating, etc. They even include the water we drink and the air we breathe. These can all be classified as either:

• renewable
• nonrenewable
• perpetual

Perpetual resources, such as solar energy, wind and tides, last seemingly forever, at least in relation to our life span. Super-hot steam from deep underground is another example.

Nonrenewable resources, however, exist in limited amounts, and once they are used up, they cannot be replaced. An example would be fossil fuels such as oil, which are formed through natural processes that span millions of years. If all the oil were to be used up, there would be no more, at least not for millions of additional years.

Likewise, selenium and cadmium used in batteries are nonrenewable resources, because there are limited amounts of those elements in the earth's crust. Other nonrenewable resources such as copper were created billions of years ago during the explosion of giant stars. These types of nonrenewable resources are, therefore, not created through any known, natural process here on earth. Should we run out of these kinds of metals, we could only get them from mining on other planets.

Renewable resources are materials that can be replenished through natural and/or human processes. For example, even though trees die naturally or are harvested by lumber companies, new trees are re-seeded by nature or planted by people. Another example is livestock. Although Americans consume large amounts of chicken and beef products, new chickens and cows are being raised to maintain the supply.

Renewable resources need to be carefully managed. Species of animals may be hunted so extensively that there is no chance for renewal to occur. In addition, grasslands may become overgrazed to the point where the soil loses its ability to support plant life and prevent erosion. Groundwater supplies may be pumped out of the ground faster than precipitation can replenish them. Just ask anyone with well water during a drought! The maximum rate at which a renewable resource can be used without reducing the capacity of the resource to renew itself is called sustainable yield. This is an especially important equation for the lumber industry, because it means calculating how many trees can be harvested without destroying the forest's ability to produce replacement trees.

The Importance of Recycling and Reuse of Resources

When we recycle or reuse natural resources, we decrease the demand on the resources and also save energy. For example, when we recycle aluminum cans, less bauxite needs to be mined to create "new" aluminum cans.

In summary, whether we use wood for houses, aluminum for airplanes, electricity to light our homes or water to quench our thirst, the choices we make every day to use renewable and nonrenewable resources to meet our needs has an impact on the global environment. Decisions to recycle whenever possible and to develop new recycling technologies can extend the availability of nonrenewable resources.