how does reduce reuse recycle help climate change essay

MSU Extension MI Money Health

Reduce, recycle and reuse to decrease climate change.

Brenda Long, Michigan State University Extension - June 14, 2023

More energy conservation could affect the occurrence of major storms and hurricanes.

Two green arrows moving into each other. Representative of reduce, reuse, recycle.

In recent years hurricanes and storms caused major damage and affected millions, including Michigan residents. As storms of this intensity become more and more frequent, climate change and variability simply cannot be ignored.

Climate change is any major change in measures of climate, which include temperature, precipitation, rainfall, snow and wind. These changes last for decades or longer. Many factors are causing climate change, including human activities through burning fossil fuels, cutting down trees, planting trees and building developments. Most scientists now agree that climate change is happening. Read more in this publication from the Michigan Department of Public Health.

What can you do to help? Adopt more green practices like recycling in your home and workplace is one recommendation by the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH). Each of us makes many decisions in our homes and communities about the products we buy and personal habits. Some decisions result in more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. When added together, we all contribute to climate change. We all can make a difference by reducing consumption.

We can help protect our natural resources and reduce the amount of waste produced by following the three R's: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) .

Reduce the amount of products you use.
Reuse products instead of throwing them away.
Recycle waste products.

Thinking about your current habits and making a few minor changes can make a big difference! Consider some of these changes:

Buy the amount of a product needed rather than the "economy" size.
Save energy by using compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of standard light bulbs.
Look for good, used items online, at garage sales and other local sources.
Reuse and recycling products like plastic grocery bags.
Recycle items like batteries, electronics, plastic and paper.

You can find the amount of energy that you’ll save using a tool from the E.P.A.

Recycling is easy and takes a small amount of time. The Michigan Department Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (DEGLE) has a lot of information for you about recycling and its benefits. Learn what all of those recycling symbols mean too. Find the list of hazardous household waste and recycling centers in Michigan.

Consider your existing household activities and decide how a few personal efforts to reduce, recycle and reuse could respond to specific challenges of climate change.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension . For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu . To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters . To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts , or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

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The impact of recycling on climate change

When considering climate change mitigation and reducing your carbon footprint, you probably think of driving less and turning out the lights. But did you know that organic and inorganic waste is also a massive contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions? A zero-waste lifestyle keeps material out of landfills and reduces your carbon footprint.

The benefits of recycling

As climate change and waste are ever-growing problems worldwide, it is essential to understand how these two significant issues affect each other. Recycling helps combat the climate crisis by limiting the use of raw materials and reducing waste going into landfills.

Project Drawdown estimates that recycling between 2020 and 2050 will reduce emissions by 5.5 to 6.02 gigatons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking over one billion cars off the streets for one year. Recycling is a practical yet easy change to help curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit the climate crisis.

When an item is recycled, it is processed and turned into something new rather than created out of virgin material or disposed of and treated as waste in a landfill.
Recycling to create something new generally uses less energy than creating a product from raw materials.
Recycling aluminum is incredibly energy efficient. Using aluminum scraps to make aluminum cans saves 95% of the energy used to create an aluminum can from raw materials. Producing 40 aluminum cans requires the amount of energy in one gallon of gasoline and can be significantly decreased by using recycled aluminum scraps.
The less energy used to produce a good, the fewer greenhouse gases are emitted in the process. This benefits climate change, as greenhouse gas emissions drive the current climate crisis.

How to positively impact climate change through recycling

You can make a difference in reducing climate change by making recycling an integral part of your lifestyle and routine.

Buy products made from recycled materials. This will support the market for recycled items and encourage the continued recycling of materials and the production of items made from recycled materials.
Recycle everything that you can. Learn what is recyclable.
Limit the number of disposable items you purchase in the first place to reduce the production of disposable items .
Swap out disposable items for reusable items . Switch to reusable water bottles, shopping bags, food storage containers and other reusable products.

Upcycled vs. downcycled materials

There are many pathways for recycled products. Turning an item into a new version of the same product is ideal when possible. Other options include turning the recycled material into new products.

Upcycling turns a recycled material into something of equal or greater value or quality than the original product. Sometimes, the term upcycling refers to the reuse of an item instead of throwing it away. Upcycling lengthens the life of a given material. Industrial upcycling depends on the materials. Here are some easy-to-upcycle materials.

Paper: Recycled office paper is upcycled as new office paper. Paper is also downcycled and turned into toilet paper, paper towels and notebook paper, generally because of contamination and lack of adequate sorting.
Cardboard: Recycled cardboard may become new cardboard. When downcycled, it becomes paper bags, packaging or paperboard.
Metals: Recycled aluminum cans can become new aluminum cans, and recycled steel cans will turn into steel cans. When downcycled, metal can become bike or car parts, appliances, rebar and other metal products.

Downcycling turns a product into a different product, but the cycle is not infinitely repeatable. An example of downcycling is when a plastic bottle gets turned into a fleece jacket. PET plastics, like soda bottles, are hard to recycle infinitely because when they become a new product, the plastic gets weaker each time. Virgin materials also often have to be added to the new product to account for the weakening that the recycling process causes.

Some materials are challenging to upcycle or downcycle and often end up in landfills. However, you can repurpose some items to keep them out of landfills. Here are examples of materials that are hard to recycle.

Plastic bags: Plastic bags cannot be put in a regular recycling bin, making collection more complex. Also, the material used for plastic bags is generally hard to recycle.
Electronics: Electronics contain toxins such as lead and mercury, which can make them more dangerous to recycle. Collection is often an issue as curbside recycling companies don’t accept electronics. You must take electronics to a special facility for recycling.
Styrofoam (or polystyrene): Products made from Styrofoam are typically contaminated with food and have an incredibly low density. Because of this incredibly low density, it is not cost-effective to transport polystyrene because it takes up a lot of space and offers very little recyclable material.

The climate impact of waste disposal

Different types of waste impact the environment differently. However, all items placed in a landfill negatively impact the environment.

Organic waste decomposes and creates carbon dioxide and methane gas. Methane is produced when no air is present, while carbon dioxide is the natural product when anything rots in the air.
Inorganic waste includes products made from natural resources such as water, fuel, metal and timber, which causes greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
Plastic waste produces greenhouse gas emissions during every stage of its lifecycle. Plastic extraction and transportation depend on oil, gas and coal. The production and disposal of plastics release tons of carbon emissions.

The waste management process, including transportation and incineration, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

Start recycling

Recycling is easy in Boulder, both on campus and in the community. With plentiful recycling bins and curbside pickup, you can choose to live sustainably by recycling. You can learn more about ways to incorporate sustainable habits through the Environmental Center .

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Does recycling actually help the climate?

Myth: If you dispose of recyclables properly, they will be recycled.

Many people believe that disposing of items in recycling bins guarantees their recycling, but this isn’t always the case.

It’s not uncommon for items placed in recycling bins to end up directly in garbage trucks, making many recycling bins a mirage for environmentalists. In 2023, a landfill in Georgia was filmed mixing recycling with trash. In the face of misleading information and perceived powerlessness, some U.S. residents are growing apathetic to recycling and, by extension, climate policy.

Ever noticed the iconic triangular recycling symbol? You’d be surprised to know it isn’t trademarked, enabling anyone to print it on their products — regardless of whether they are recyclable. So the symbol can tempt consumers into believing all recyclable products are eco-friendly. As Stanford professor Michael Wara notes, such practices could be considered consumer fraud.

One way to combat this issue is by making conscious buying decisions. Consider checking for credible eco-labels while shopping, such as Energy Star logos on appliances or the Fair Trade certifications on coffee or chocolate. However, double-check that any certifications are from third-party agencies and not producers themselves. That can help assure you that the products meet stringent environmental and ethical standards.

But there’s only so much consumers can do alone. To truly hold these large companies accountable, we need the government in on this, too. California laws SB 343 and AB 1201 are models for potential federal regulations. These two laws establish standards for labeling products as “recyclable” and “compostable,” reducing false claims about a product’s environmental impact.

In the future, the Federal Trade Commission could mandate clear standards for packaging labels, specifying which locations the material can be recycled. These regulations could be enforced with civil penalties like fines to ensure compliance.

Though misinformation plays a significant role in confusion about recycling, environmental educator Kristy Drutman says there’s also another factor at play: language barriers. “I think also being able to translate recycling information into different languages is really important moving forward,” she said.

Myth: Recycling is the best thing you can do to fight against climate change.

Many people believe recycling is the ultimate antidote to climate change. But is it?

Not really. According to research at the University of Leeds , recycling ranked low on a list of effective actions that an individual could take to fight climate change. Higher-ranked actions included living car-free, avoiding long-haul air travel, and reducing consumption of red meat.

You might also choose to vote in every election for climate-friendly leaders or join a climate-focused organization.

Of course, recycling matters, yet we can’t lose sight of the larger climate challenges and strike a balance between individual and corporate responsibility.

Myth: “Reduce,” “reuse,” and “recycle” are equally beneficial.

Plastics can only be recycled a finite number of times at best, sometimes only once, due to structural and composition breakdowns during the recycling process. This process involves melting, during which the material loses its integrity and gathers contaminants. And several plastic types, especially those in electronic devices or those stained by food, often bypass recycling altogether. These problems underline the necessity of advancing our recycling technologies while curtailing overall plastic use.

In situations where plastic is nonnegotiable, you can make a positive impact by choosing products made with recyclable plastics such as Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) found in beverage bottles or High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) used for jugs and detergent bottles. You can also advocate for policies that favor their usage.

But fundamentally, recycling isn’t as beneficial as reduction and reuse. Again, the onus lies more heavily on corporations, whose environmental footprints vastly overshadow individual consumers. Several companies have been found to unduly overemphasize the impact of minor consumer actions (like choosing metal straws over plastic ones), to divert attention from their failure to minimize waste. In fact, in 2022, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an investigation into ExxonMobil, looking at whether the oil giant had oversold the promise of recycling.

Myth: Anyone can recycle.

Low-income and minority communities often lack recycling infrastructure. And oftentimes, advocacy in these communities is primarily directed toward bigger concerns — like making sure oil pipelines are not being built straight through their land.

Indigenous organizer Jade Begay pointed out that promoting recycling literacy in such communities might be tone-deaf, as recycling isn’t the main priority.

“We’re engaged in environmental justice issues because we have to be,” Begay said. “To fight to protect our lands is to automatically engage in environmental and climate justice work.”

Reality: Recycling education could be more than just trash talk.

Recycling education is often limited to helping people master the art of waste segregation. In reality, it could become a critical weapon in our arsenal against climate change.

Better recycling education could help students grasp environmental justice issues, such as the disproportionate siting of landfills in low-income Black and Brown communities. Such programs could weave in civic engagement opportunities, such as voter registration or extra credit for attending a town hall meeting. As part of the syllabus, students could learn the ropes of local and national environmental legislation and grapple with how their political decisions influence our battle for the planet.

Understanding recycling and responsible waste handling could also help students learn to challenge large companies about their environmental footprints — and advocate for more rigorous regulations for the big players. This form of recycling literacy could help young people break through the fog of greenwashing and individual action to see the power that grows from collective action.

Cameron Sabet is a medical student at Georgetown University and COO at educational nonprofit Ivy League Mentoring. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Hill, Smithsonian Magazine, the Lancet, and BMJ.

Alessandro Hammond is a student at Harvard University and researcher at the Boston Children’s Hospital whose writing has appeared in Nature, The Washington Post, and Frontiers in Public Health.

Sophia Kianni is an Iranian-American social entrepreneur and climate activist at Stanford University. She is the founder of Climate Cardinals, a Yale Climate Connections partner. In addition, she is a United Nations adviser and serves on the EPA’s National Youth Advisory Council.

Tom Toro is a cartoonist and writer who has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010.

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Reduce. Reuse. And Then, When All Else Fails, Recycle.

Brynne Wilcox

A municipal waste worker turns away another shipment of recycled materials littered with greasy pizza boxes and broken glass, sentencing this waste to slow death in a landfill without a second thought.

As he does so, a woman speaks up in my presentation to visitors at Olympic National Park in upstate Washington, pleased with her efforts to protect the environment for future generations.

Full of pride, she describes her active role in the fight against climate change. She tells me she is doing her part. She recycles.

She is far from unique in this perspective. I have had countless conversations with self-proclaimed environmentalists who believe recycling is adequate action.

A 2016 study from the Pew Research Center showed recycling as a primary method of helping the environment through every day actions, with 63 percent of adults in the U.S. saying they have recycling bins at home, more than any other action presented in the study.

Modern recycling has become a part of life, but what happens when those plastic containers leave our curb?

The obvious answer is that it makes its way to a recycling facility, but this is too often not the case.

China, which had previously handled more than half of American recycling, closed its doors to our waste in 2017. Still, the U.S. continues to ship over one million tons of plastic waste overseas, according to an investigation published by The Guardian in 2019 .

Moreover, between 20 and 70 percent of this plastic is discarded because it is contaminated or otherwise unusable, condemning this waste to landfills where it will remain long after you, or I, or any of our children are gone. The wide range in the estimates of how many recyclables actually end up in landfills is but one indicator of how little we really understand about the true environmental impact of commercial recycling.

Likely the woman from my presentation didn’t know this, or maybe she didn’t care.

Certainly, our society has a waste problem, as seen in overflowing landfills and islands of trash in our oceans. In its current capacity, recycling is not an adequate solution to this problem. Refocusing on waste prevention and reuse could more effectively prevent these piles of trash from continuing to grow, but how can we foster this change?

By the time the slogan, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” was popularized in the 1970s , our consumerist economy was in full swing. Manufacturers couldn’t afford to have people buying less by reducing purchases and reusing products, and people weren’t interested in reducing their consumption. While recycling should have been the last resort, people began to consider it the singular solution to our waste problem. The image of three green arrows became a symbol for commercial recycling, and ideas of reducing and reusing were quickly forgotten.

Reduction and reuse are not modern notions. Until the late 19th century, families used old fabrics for new clothes or blankets and repaired their own furniture, and whatever they couldn’t use was reclaimed by merchants who could. Historian Susan Strasser has described how this form of recycling was a part of life long before commercial recycling was even comprehensible, and this approach resulted in the generation of very little waste in general.

During the advent of the Industrial Revolution, waste became a notable problem, and recycling became important in a new way. Where earlier forms of recycling were born in response to limited materials and thin wallets, modern recycling was a solution to unmanageable amounts of waste.

If the 63 percent of American adults who recycle at home practiced 19th-century recycling instead, emphasizing reduction and reuse, the impact on industry would be shocking. Repurposing and repairing wearing clothing, finding reusable alternatives to household products and packaging, and reducing consumption of disposable items where we can, could change the way our society thinks about waste.

There are barriers to these practices, like a lack of accessibility and affordability stemming from high prices of sustainable products or product repairs, especially in comparison to the affordable nature of cheap, disposable products. With increased demand and improved regulation of the lifespan of products from production to disposal, there is hope for this to improve in time.

Regulatory frameworks could include subsidies for reusable or compostable single-use materials, tax penalties for single use plastic production, other incentives for durable products, or plenty more creative solutions.

Our environmental problems run much deeper than waste, with greenhouse gas emissions creating a dangerously unstable climate. This being said, with reduced energy use in manufacturing and shipping, reduction and reuse can go further in alleviating these problems than recycling alone could.

I’m not blaming the virtue-signaling woman who spoke up in my program, or telling you to stop recycling. In fact, I commend her efforts, and hope that you recycle better, avoiding contaminated materials in your own curbside bin.

Emphasizing reduction and reuse can do so much more to manage waste, though. Pushing for governmental regulation to pressure major waste-producing industries can go even further. Successful plastic bag bans around the world are a great example of where to start. Next, we must look to other single-use products and waste sources to continue this momentum.

Brynne Wilcox is a graduate student in Columbia Climate School’s M.A. in Climate and Society program.

Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Columbia Climate School, Earth Institute or Columbia University.

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16 November 2022

Recycling our way to sustainability

Sarah King 0

Sarah King is a circular economy researcher at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

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Evidence of the economic opportunities that a circular economy could bring is mounting. The potential environmental impact is also clear. The move to a circular economy — a system that aims to reduce, reuse and recycle materials — could address 70% of global greenhouse emissions 1 . As the benefits stack up, this transition is becoming a key focus for policymakers around the world. But there remains much confusion about what a circular economy is, and how it might be achieved.

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This article is part of Nature Outlook: The circular economy , an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content .

Circle Economy. The Circularity Gap Report 2022 1–64 (2022).

Kirchherr, J., Reike, D. & Hekkert, M. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 127 , 221–232 (2017).

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Would stopping plastic pollution help with climate change how do we do it, plastic pollution does contribute a bit to climate change—and slowing the production of non-degradable plastics has other large benefits for natural ecosystems..

August 16, 2022

Over a century after the first fully synthetic plastic debuted, plastic waste is a major problem. Eight to 12 million tons of it enter global oceans annually, where it kills marine life, piles into enormous garbage patches, and crumbles into microplastics that resurface in drinking water. “We have plastic in our stomachs,” says Christopher Noble, who is the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative’s Director of Corporate Engagement and leads their Plastics and Environment Program . “And so does everybody else in the world.”

Plastic also contributes to climate change: plastics are environmentally costly to make and dispose of, they emit greenhouse gases as they decompose, and some evidence shows that the tiniest bits damage zooplankton—critters that are critical in the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon. 1

Piles of plastic waste

Plastic is made with fossil fuels and comprises roughly 6% of global oil consumption. 2 Humans discard huge amounts daily: more than 40% of all non-fiber plastic becomes packaging, most of which is single-use. 3 And once it’s here, it sticks around. “Something from Amazon.com that was packaged one day ago, you throw the packaging out," says Noble. “That packaging was used for 24 hours and then is thrown into a landfill,” where it might take decades to decompose.

The US produces more plastic waste than any other country. 4 Most of this waste, even if it was intended for recycling, goes to landfills, or is incinerated or exported—often to countries that don't have the infrastructure to prevent it from winding up in water systems. 5 Plastic pollution also comes from urban runoff, industrial debris, illegal dumping, particles from clothing and personal care products, and fishing and aquaculture industries, to name a few.

The plastic industry emits greenhouse gases at every stage, from materials extraction to incineration, and production is increasing. A 2019 report from the Center for International Environmental Law projects that the industry will release up to 1.34 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2030 6 —about equal to the emissions of the entire continent of Africa today. 7 And the resulting plastic waste will continue releasing more emissions the longer it sits around. The most commonly used plastics have been shown to release the greenhouse gases ethylene and methane as they decompose, 8 the latter of which traps atmospheric heat at 25 times the rate of carbon dioxide over the course of a century.

How do we prioritize plastic vs. the climate?

Climate change and plastic pollution have many of the same root causes, says Noble, including over-consumption of natural resources and non-renewable energy, and insufficient recycling and reuse systems. And plastic pollution and climate change contribute to many of the same environmental problems, like biodiversity loss. Climate change also worsens plastic pollution’s effects: spreading this waste farther as weather and natural hazards intensify, and weakening marine ecosystems so they're less able to withstand plastic pollution. 9

Focusing on which of these two global problems is worse “can sometimes discourage working broadly on these issues,” cautions Noble. But to the extent we have to choose, he adds, climate change is the more urgent issue: “climate change might well be an existential threat , whereas plastic pollution is not.”

Reducing plastic's environmental impact

Recycling, as it exists now, does little to curb plastic pollution. Less than 10% of discarded plastics are recycled, partially because many plastic products, like flexible films used in potato chip bags, are laminated with non-recyclable materials. 10 Recycling programs also vary between locales, making it hard to know which plastics are recyclable—and misleading labeling doesn’t help. (For example, the three-arrow recycling triangle on plastic products doesn’t necessarily mean that an item is recyclable in your area.)

Noble calls biodegradable plastics a “big hope” for reducing waste, but historically these options have hit cost and efficacy obstacles. “It's very challenging to create biodegradable plastics,” Noble says. “Part of the benefit of plastic is that it is not biodegradable,” producing products that will last as long as we care to use them or let them sit on a shelf.

Reducing plastics is vital, he adds, but doing so requires worldwide cooperation. Nearly 130 countries have plastic regulations, ranging from bans on certain types of plastics and plastic products, to laws mandating that producers ensure a certain rate of recycling or responsible disposal, 11 but policies vary between nations and have limited efficacy as plastic consumption keeps rising.

Despite the challenges, there are movements toward a global shift. The UN Environment Programme, for example, is currently working to create an internationally-binding agreement focused on ending plastic pollution. 12

Without these types of legal incentives and disincentives motivating plastic producers and consumers to choose alternatives, says Noble, the problems won’t stop. “Policy innovation and cooperation are needed at the international, national, and local levels.”

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How Useful Is Recycling, Really?

Among all possible climate actions, recycling ranks pretty low in its impact.

A plastic bag, some plastic bottles, aluminum can tops and a recycling symbol in front of a green background

One of the few things Americans largely agree on is recycling. This simple act is popular with Democrats, Republicans, free-market diehards, and environmental advocates alike, data consistently show. And among recycling enthusiasts, one group is particularly keen—people already concerned about climate change.

This makes a certain intuitive sense, as recycling has well-documented benefits for the planet and can reduce carbon emissions. Still, as climate actions go, even the most committed recyclers caution that this one has clear limits.

“There are a lot of climate benefits to bolstering the recycling system,” Beth Porter, the author of Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine: Sorting Out the Recycling System , told me. “But we also have to acknowledge that recycling is not among the highest-priority actions.”

Recycling does have value. It is one of the easier climate-friendly acts individuals can undertake, and it reduces the extraction of virgin materials. “Any time you use renewable resources, or secondary resources, there’s less carbon emitted than if you use primary resources,” Adam Minter, the author of Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade , an insider’s account of the international recycling business, told me.

Read: Is this the end of recycling?

Despite the carbon involved in collection, transport, and processing, recycled aluminum, for example, is about 95 percent less energy-intensive to forge than its raw alternative. Project Drawdown, a nonprofit group that conducts reviews of climate solutions, includes recycling in its recommendations for reining in emissions. But when the group analyzed more than 80 separate means that could help keep the world from passing the oft-cited threshold of 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius of warming, the recycling industry ’s projected contributions fell below the median, trailing geothermal power, efficient aviation, forest protection, and dozens of other actions.

Project Drawdown’s list centers on strategies that are feasible to adopt and have room for growth within the existing market. It gives more weight to solutions such as onshore wind turbines for that reason. The recommendations also account for recycling’s tricky relationship with waste reduction—on its face, waste reduction alone saves much more in emissions. If 1 million metric tons of waste are landfilled, direct emissions equal about 274,000 tons of CO 2 -equivalent, Miranda Gorman, a senior fellow with the group, explained to me. Not sending items for disposal avoids creating those emissions. Recycling is more complex, because the process itself consumes energy and resources. But it still reduces the use of virgin feedstocks, which Project Drawdown estimates can save up to an additional 2 million tons of CO 2 -equivalent. Both are ultimately needed, the group says.

“We analyze the impact of the integrated system as a whole, and all of the solutions are interconnected,” Gorman said.

Read: The dangerous pile-up of artificial turf

For recycling to truly make an impact, however, it needs to be more effective. In 2018, national rates had dipped to 32 percent of total municipal waste, according to the most recent data available from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—out of almost 300 million tons of waste generated that year, only 69 million tons were recycled. Paper and paperboard are among the more recycled materials, while glass has stagnated at about 25 percent. Plastics recycling rates remain under 10 percent.

Americans might want to recycle, but a constant influx of new and hard-to-manage materials in the waste stream poses ongoing problems for facilities with aging infrastructure. This can be compounded by a lack of education and standardization: Recycling programs differ wildly, and people are often so enthusiastic about recycling, they toss items into a bin without verifying that they can, in fact, be recycled.

That last problem is sometimes called “wish-cycling.” If a municipal program receives a particular item that it cannot accept, it is subsequently hauled elsewhere for disposal, creating emissions and contributing to the waste stream. Such practices, Minter noted, underscore the gap between the public’s good intentions and recycling’s real capacity.

“People just really want a way out of their consumption that doesn’t make them feel bad,” he said.

But recycling does ultimately play a role in emissions reduction, and in recent years the industry, too, has leaned into its clear climate benefits.

“Landfills create methane, a serious climate bad actor, and the less that goes into the landfill, the better,” Keefe Harrison, the CEO of The Recycling Partnership (TRP), told me. “From a system point of view, recycling protects the climate by keeping natural habitats in place, limiting the need for carbon-intensive harvesting of virgin natural resources.”

Read: A new way of thinking about climate change

A national nonprofit, TRP focuses on building public-private partnerships to boost recycling, powered by a group of funders, including Coca-Cola, the American Chemistry Council, and Burt’s Bees. Like others in the space, TRP’s message often centers on “circularity” and the idea of an economy that operates in a renewing cycle rather than on a linear path that culminates in disposal.

Climate change is a key part of that message. Since its beginning in 2014, Harrison said, TRP's work has helped prevent the emission of about 251,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, in addition to diverting more than 230 million tons of recyclables from landfills. And the group thinks that more emissions reductions are possible: In a 2020 report , TRP found that only about half of Americans have access to curbside pickup, and that many who do have access don’t fully participate.

That has led to the inverse of wish-cycling—items are being thrown away that could be recycled. Curbside recycling currently recovers only about 32 percent of what is available in single-family homes, according to TRP. If the remainder were recycled each year, based on calculations through the EPA’s Waste Reduction Model , which determines emissions savings stemming from waste-management practices, TRP has found that "would also reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 96 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent," Harrison said.

Although industry forces see recycling as a key climate tool, others are more skeptical, including Jan Dell, a chemical engineer and founder of the Last Beach Cleanup. The chief focus of her criticism is a common one: plastics.

“Companies actively use recycling as a distraction and an excuse,” Dell told me. She sees many corporate recycling pledges as a means of evading actual climate action.

Environmental advocates maintain that plastics are largely single-use: A 2020 Greenpeace USA survey found that plastics with resin codes #3–7 are virtually impossible to recycle, because of limited facility processing capabilities and insufficient market demand. Lawsuits are currently ongoing against Walmart and Keurig Green Mountain , arguing that those companies have violated Federal Trade Commission guidance by presenting plastic items as recyclable. The corporate giants have defended themselves against the allegations and emphasized their commitment to sustainability. (Walmart said in a statement that the company is “a strong advocate for the environment” and recycling, while Keurig has maintained in court that its labels advise consumers to “check locally” regarding recycling options.)

Other industry groups and corporations have also strongly disputed Greenpeace’s report and broader thesis. Some are members of the U.S. Plastics Pact , a large-scale voluntary effort driven by TRP and other groups that aims to achieve 100 percent reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging by 2025, among several other goals. Their focus is creating a market for plastics that keeps them in circulation, rather than dooming them to disposal.

Critics say focusing on getting hard-to-recycle materials out of the recycling system altogether would do more to curb climate and environmental issues. Dell suggested going back to “core four” recyclables (cardboard, plastic bottles, glass bottles, and aluminum cans), since items such as plastic film and bags are notorious for burdening recycling facilities. But she also cited the Jevons paradox, the economic idea that increasing the efficiency of a resource’s use also increases its consumption. Rather than prioritizing fixing recycling, she said, people should place greater emphasis on scaling back their waste to begin with.

Others agree that a reliance on mass-producing virgin materials poses a far bigger climate threat than limited recycling access, or habits such as wish-cycling. Minter said that some Western countries could benefit from looking to other parts of the world where, by economic necessity, people have formed better habits around recirculating resources. Porter, too, worries that recycling can perpetuate consumption and waste. A reliance on recycling, she said, can draw attention away from prioritizing “reduce and reuse,” which do far more to lower emissions.

“I don't want people to think that what they do as an individual doesn’t matter,” she said, but added that “we won't recycle our way out of this crisis.”

That doesn't mean giving up on recycling; instead, Porter advised thinking of it as a key part of materials-management efforts, rather than a singular solution to climate change. In essence, people should keep their enthusiasm for recycling alive and active—but they shouldn’t stop there.

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Recycling: Beyond the Bin

We've made huge strides in keeping the things we throw away out of landfills. Here's how you can take recycling to the next level—at home, at work, and in your community.

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We all know recycling is the right thing to do. It keeps trash out of our landfills, saves energy, preserves natural resources and wildlife, and reduces our carbon footprint. And plenty of people do it: In 1980, recycling and composting kept 14.5 million tons of trash from landfills and incinerators in the United States. By 2013, that number had reached 87.2 million tons.

That's a big leap, but it still accounts for only 34.3 percent of the stuff we discard nationwide every year. In other words, we could do better. Here are six ways we can move closer to a zero-waste world as we continue to cart our blue and green cans to the curb.

Learn the basics.

"The power of a lot of people acting correctly is the most important thing," says Darby Hoover , an NRDC senior resource specialist. "People need to familiarize themselves with community guidelines." What you can recycle (takeout containers? direct mail?) and how you should do it (curbside? drop-off centers?) vary greatly from city to city and state to state. Visit your municipality's website to learn more about your local recycling rules and options—and don't forget to check whether your community collects food or yard waste for composting, as well.

Buy recycled.

Make sure the products you purchase (and the packaging they come in) are recyclable, and when possible, choose products that contain recycled materials. "If you purchase products that have recycled content, you're closing the recycling loop and making sure the cycle continues," Hoover says. You also incentivize manufacturers and businesses to use more postconsumer waste and fewer virgin materials.

Get your coworkers to recycle more.

Learn what's recyclable in your workplace. Make sure recycling bins are clearly marked and that everybody understands recycling procedures. Advocate for buying in bulk and for purchasing products made from recycled content that come in recycled packaging. Make sure electronic waste is handled by an E-Stewards -certified company, and explore other ways waste can be recycled. If your business has a contract with a recycling hauler, look into the possibility of reducing expenses by collecting high-value materials, such as office paper, separately. "Offices are often surprised to find the materials they throw away have value," Hoover says. Find ways to eliminate waste before it shows up, too, by offering filtered water and replacing disposable plates and cutlery with reusable options.

Raise community awareness.

"Schools are great places to educate about recycling," Hoover says. If you are a parent, teacher, or student, get the other members of your community involved in an informal waste audit: Take a look in a school trash bin and ask what's there and how and if it can be recycled or composted. Plan a community tour of your local materials recovery facility, recycling center, or landfill. "Seeing what happens to the items you put in the recycling or garbage bin really enforces that there's no such thing as throwing things away," Hoover says. "There is no 'away.' The items we discard end up somewhere." If municipal composting isn't available where you live, start a community compost pile for food and yard waste.

Reduce, reuse, and rethink before recycling.

Recycling waste materials is better than landfilling them, but the best option is to not generate them at all. Reduce waste by buying in bulk, using reusable shopping bags and water bottles, and tossing out less food . Reuse clothing and other unwanted items by donating them to community organizations like homeless shelters, thrift stores, and animal shelters. And rethink what you typically throw out—like grass clippings, which can be left on your lawn to condition and fertilize the soil. Cutting down on waste could even save you money, since a growing number of communities have "pay as you throw" programs that charge a waste collection fee based on the size of your garbage can.

Support extended producer responsibility laws.

When producers are responsible for the entire life cycle of the items they make, they're more apt to use environmentally safe and recyclable materials and to reduce the amount of those materials. By supporting legislation that holds manufacturers financially accountable, you encourage the design of better and more recyclable goods and ensure that producers pay their fair share of the costs of recycling.

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The 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

The 3 R’s stand for “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle”. This Eco Trio are rules that guide us to take care of our planet and use things wisely.

“Reducing” means using less , like using fewer plastic bottles or buying products with less packaging. It’s about cutting down on waste from the start.

“Reduce” means not buying too many things in the first place. It’s about being mindful of using resources wisely so they don’t end up in a landfill .

For instance, bringing your own reusable coffee cup or water bottle is an example of “reducing”. By doing this, you help cut down on the need for single-use containers and reduce waste.

“Reusing” means using things again instead of throwing them away. There are a lot of creative ways that you can reuse anything in your household.

For example, you can reuse old cardboard boxes to create fun DIY projects or as storage containers. This not only saves money but also reduces the number of boxes that end up in the trash.

Another example of “reuse” is using an empty glass jar to store leftovers instead of throwing them away. This way, you give the jar a second life and reduce the need for new containers.

“Recycling” is the process of collecting and processing materials like paper, plastic, and glass so they can be turned into new products . It’s a way to give old items a new life instead of sending them to the landfill.

On average, over 69 million tons are recycled in the United States. Paper and cardboard make up about two-thirds of all the recycled things. Next, metals are around 13%. Finally, glass, plastic, and wood together are about 4 to 5%.

Food waste is still a significant problem. In the United States, 30-40% of all food produced is wasted . This is a big problem because it means throwing away good food and causing environmental issues.

The 3 R’s Hierarchy

The order of the 3 R’s is not just about the spelling; it’s a strategic approach to sustainable waste management .

The 3 R’s hierarchy starts with “Reduce,” the best way to manage waste. Then comes “Reuse,” and lastly “Recycle.”

This hierarchy shows that it’s best to reduce and reuse items first. Recycling uses more energy and resources and has a bigger environmental impact.

“Reduce” is the leader because it makes sure you don’t buy unnecessary items in the first place. Next, “reuse” is like a helpful sidekick because it’s when you use something more than once. Finally, “recycle” is like the hero who cleans up after a big mess.

Examples of the 3 R’s

The table below highlights some of the examples of applying the 3 R’s to everyday life.

So far, you’ve learned about the importance of the 3 R’s and how they can be helpful in reducing climate change . Here’s a recap of the 3 R’s:

By following the 3 R’s, we can protect the Earth , use things wisely, and make sure there’s enough for us and the generations that come after us.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Resources for Students and Educators (EPA)

Earth’s Geomagnetic Reversal: Flipping Polarity

What Is the Mesosphere?

What Is the Exosphere?

Ice Ages: Glaciations in Geologic History

10 Electrifying Lightning Facts: Get Thunderstruck

Earth’s Atmosphere Composition: Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon and CO2

What Are the 4 Layers of the Atmosphere? [Infographic]

5 Major Air Pollution Sources in the Atmosphere

What is Magnetic Reconnection in the Magnetosphere?

How Much Space Junk Orbits Earth? [Infographic]

10 Unbelievable Weather and Climate Facts

What Is the Troposphere?

Coriolis Effect: Air Circulation in the Atmosphere

How the Greenhouse Effect Traps Heat and Warms Earth

this is very helpful to the earth

JK we need to save the earth by doing things like saving plastic bags and other things as well it could really help people and this earth.(help save the earth) every live counts and has to do its job to help

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This argument is explained very well! Congrats!

This website was so useful for my some work related to 3’rs.

Reading about “The 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” got me all pumped up about doing my part for the planet! The article brilliantly highlights how simple actions, like reducing waste, reusing stuff, and recycling, can make a huge impact. I’ve already started incorporating these practices into my daily routine, and it feels awesome. Kudos to the author for spreading the eco-friendly vibes! Let’s keep rocking those 3 R’s and make the world a greener, cleaner place.

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December 13, 2022

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Why All 3 R’s Are Critical to a Circular Economy

To create a sustainable economy, we need to revamp how we reduce, reuse and recycle products to create less waste

By Sarah King

Multi-colored plastic flakes at a recycling center.

Recycling could improve if changes are made to product design, manufacturing and collection infrastructure.

Bloomberg Creative/Getty Images

Evidence of the economic opportunities that a circular economy could bring is mounting. The potential environmental impact is also clear. The move to a circular economy—a system that aims to reduce, reuse and recycle materials—could address 70% of global greenhouse emissions. As the benefits stack up, this transition is becoming a key focus for policymakers around the world. But there remains much confusion about what a circular economy is, and how it might be achieved.

One common misunderstanding is the notion that it is simply a rebrand of recycling—the recovery and reprocessing of waste materials for use in new products. This perception is reinforced because recycling is the most common component of almost 80% of circular economy definitions. But, although recycling is an important element, there are many others. Before recycling comes into play there are several steps in a product’s life cycle that should be addressed, such as redesigning products and processes so that they use less virgin material, and re-using items rather than discarding them. New business models such as sharing and repairing can be adopted. These approaches prioritize smart designs that extend a product’s useful life, before reaching the stage of recycling. These steps are consistent with the central aim of a circular economy: to provide economic productivity by eliminating the concept of waste.

Recycling is often criticized as insufficient compared with earlier interventions such as reuse or reduce. And it is true that a circular economy requires a great deal more than recycling. But recycling remains a fundamental strategy to extract value from resources, as evidenced by its current contribution to 8.6% global circularity.

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To improve recycling rates, we need to recognize that the waste and resource recovery sector is positioned at the end of the supply chain, often known as end of life. This sector has limited influence over the materials and resources they collect. Recycling could improve if more effective changes are made upstream, such as in product design, material use, manufacturing, collection infrastructure and consumer behaviours.

Many countries, institutions and organizations need to increase resource recovery and shift away from the cheapest waste-management solutions such as landfill and incineration. This is a key barrier to realizing a circular economy. In Australia, there was significant disruption to recycling pathways in 2018 when, similarly to other high-income nations, the country could no longer export waste (including plastic and paper recycling) to China. This resulted in recycling being directed to landfill for a short period. For plastics alone, Australia required a 150% increase in domestic plastics-recycling capacity and this highlighted a need to adopt a range of circular economy strategies.

The transition to a circular economy will need further cross-sector collaboration and investment in initiatives that improve recovery rates while minimizing the consumption of raw materials, extending product life and increasing the use of renewable resources. An example is so-called right to repair legislation, which requires manufacturers to modify product design and make parts available to allow consumers to mend products. The right to repair is being adopted in Europe for electronic goods but could be applied to other products. Another example is the United Kingdom’s £200 (US$226) per tonne tax on plastic packaging that doesn’t include at least 30% recycled plastic. This approach is driving up market demand for recycled content and encourages companies to adopt recycled plastic solutions.

The Australian government has also implemented a waste export ban for key materials—including tyres, plastics, glass, paper and cardboard—and announced an investment of Aus$1 billion (roughly US$620 million) into infrastructure to enhance the country’s ability to recover and remanufacture waste materials. Product stewardship schemes, whether government mandated or voluntary, would require manufacturers and consumers to be responsible for a product throughout its life cycle, including its end-of-life stage. This initiative encourages companies to ensure their products can be recycled, such as by improving their design, or by implementing collection and recycling solutions if none already exists.

Ultimately, we need to break traditional boundaries between brand owners, manufacturers and those in the business of waste management and resource recovery, and instead stimulate collaborative partnerships. For example, nine companies joined forces to create a circular supply chain in which they captured soft plastic waste and converted it to a Nestlé KitKat wrapper using Australian-designed advanced recycling technology. This process converts waste plastic to food-grade plastic, in a continuous loop.

Innovation—on both the technological and societal fronts—is essential in the transition to a circular economy. Such shifts are needed to eliminate the concept of waste, by reducing consumption, and an increase in reuse and recycling. Local and global collaborations between government, industry, not-for-profit organizations and research agencies will help to address particularly nasty waste problems, such as plastics in the ocean.

It’s certainly true that a circular economy is much more than just recycling. But increased focus on this essential process is an effective strategy to achieve the larger goal.

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Circular Economy , an editorially independent supplement produced with financial support from Google. About this content .

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Reduce, reuse, redirect outrage: How plastic makers used recycling as a fig leaf

Michael Copley

A registered scavenger, who mainly collects plastic waste to sell, walking in a landfill in Indonesia. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A registered scavenger, who mainly collects plastic waste to sell, walking in a landfill in Indonesia.

The plastics industry has worked for decades to convince people and policymakers that recycling would keep waste out of landfills and the environment. Consumers sort their trash so plastic packaging can be repurposed, and local governments use taxpayer money to gather and process the material. Yet from the early days of recycling, plastic makers, including oil and gas companies, knew that it wasn't a viable solution to deal with increasing amounts of waste, according to documents uncovered by the Center for Climate Integrity .

Around the time the plastics industry launched its recycling campaign, the head of a trade group called the Vinyl Institute acknowledged at a 1989 conference that "recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem."

One of the biggest challenges is that making new plastic is relatively cheap. But recycling generally costs as much as or more than the material is worth, a director of environmental solutions at B.F. Goodrich explained at another industry meeting in 1992 . The "basic issue," he said, "is economics."

Investigations

How big oil misled the public into believing plastic would be recycled.

But the industry appears to have championed recycling mainly for its public relations value, rather than as a tool for avoiding environmental damage, the documents suggest. "We are committed to the activities, but not committed to the results," a vice president at Exxon Chemical said during a meeting in 1994 with staff for the American Plastics Council, a trade group.

Ross Eisenberg, president of an industry group called America's Plastic Makers, said in a statement that the report from the Center for Climate Integrity "cites outdated, decades-old technologies, and works against our goals to be more sustainable by mischaracterizing the industry and the state of today's recycling technologies. This undermines the essential benefits of plastics and the important work underway to improve the way plastics are used and reused to meet society's needs."

America's Plastic Makers has set a goal for all plastic packaging in the U.S. to be "reused, recycled, recovered by 2040," Eisenberg said.

The Center for Climate Integrity compiled the documents in a report titled " The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the plastics industry deceived the public for decades and caused the plastic waste crisis ." It builds on earlier investigations, including by NPR , that have shown the plastics industry promoted recycling even though its officials have long known that the activity would probably never be effective on a large scale.

The world is awash in plastic. Oil producers want a say in how it's cleaned up

Former industry officials have said the goal was to avoid regulations and ensure that demand for plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, kept growing. Despite years of recycling campaigns, less than 10% of plastic waste gets recycled globally , and the amount of plastic waste that's dumped in the environment continues to soar .

The idea that recycling can solve the problem of plastic waste "has always been a fraud, and it's always been a way for the industry to sell more plastic," says Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, which says it is working to hold oil and gas companies accountable for their role in fueling climate change.

A pile of plastic waste and other garbage next to children playing on a bridge in the Philippines. George Calvelo/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A pile of plastic waste and other garbage next to children playing on a bridge in the Philippines.

The U.N. is leading negotiations for a global plastics treaty

The Center for Climate Integrity published its report two months before the next round of United Nations talks is held in Canada for a legally binding global agreement on plastic waste. Negotiators from around 150 countries are expected to attend, as well as public health advocates, human rights activists, environmentalists and the oil and gas industry.

There's recently been growing concern among those who want deep cuts in plastic waste that plastic producers — corporations as well as countries such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia — could weaken a global treaty by prioritizing recycling and other forms of waste management, rather than substantial cuts in new plastic production.

Global talks to cut plastic waste stall as industry and environmental groups clash

For fossil fuel producers, the petrochemical sector, which includes plastics, is crucial to business. As technologies like electric vehicles grow more popular, demand for products such as gasoline and diesel fuel is expected to decline . But oil and gas demand for petrochemicals is projected to continue rising for years . That's why the fossil fuel industry has a big stake in the outcome of the U.N. talks. If countries agree to reduce plastic manufacturing, it could hurt the industry's future profits.

Some experts say that creates a conflict of interest. Reducing how much new plastic gets made in the first place is a "prerequisite" to getting pollution under control, Carsten Wachholz, who works at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and co-leads the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, said late last year. But "if your businesses depend on extracting more oil and gas, and plastics is the fastest growing market for fossil fuels, it's hard to imagine that you would be a credible voice to say we need to limit plastic production," he said.

Global shift to clean energy means fossil fuel demand will peak soon, IEA says

After the last round of negotiations ended in Kenya in November 2023, environmental groups complained that oil and gas producers blocked a final decision on how to advance the deliberations.

An industry advocacy group called American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers has said that restricting fossil fuel production and plastic manufacturing are not good solutions. Instead, it said the goals of the treaty can be achieved "if waste is recyclable, properly managed and kept out of the environment."

An ExxonMobil spokesperson said in a statement in November 2023 that the company is "launching real solutions to address plastic waste and improve recycling rates." The company has previously said the problem of plastic waste can be solved without cutting how much plastic society uses.

Exxon is among a group of companies that have been investing in what the industry calls "advanced recycling" plants. The facilities are designed to turn plastic waste, including material that can't be processed through traditional mechanical recycling, into liquids and gasses that can then be used to make new plastics and other chemical products.

"Advanced recycling is a real, proven solution that can help address plastic waste and improve recycling rates," Exxon said in a statement to NPR.

However, critics say the technology is ineffective and harmful to the environment and human health.

The economics of plastic recycling "haven't changed at all. Not at all. And if virgin [plastic] was always cheaper and of higher quality, that's still the case today," says Wiles of the Center for Climate Integrity.

He says the plastics industry continues to mislead the public and needs to be held responsible for it.

"And from there, you can begin to have a conversation about how we're going to solve the problem," Wiles says. "But without accountability, you just can't get to solutions."

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California Today

How You Can Help the Climate This Earth Day

Thursday: Reducing and recycling can still go a long way. Plus, a surprising pandemic shortage.

By Priya Arora and Jill Cowan

Good morning.

Happy Earth Day! President Biden has set a new climate target for the U.S.: to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The target would require Americans to transform the way they drive, heat their homes and manufacture goods.

The announcement came this morning at a virtual global summit Mr. Biden is hosting, which is aimed at sending a message that the United States is rejoining international efforts to fight global warming after a four-year absence under the Trump administration.

“If America fails to lead the world on addressing the climate crisis, we won’t have much of a world left,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned on Monday .

California is already experiencing many of climate change’s most acute effects , and though what that looks like varies by region, the impacts have been felt statewide. (Select your hometown and birth year in this model from 2017 to see how much hotter your city is now, compared with when you were born.)

Here are some ways you can help battle climate change on this Earth Day — and every day.

Nearly every bottle or can you use can be recycled, and you don’t need to wash or crush them. You can use curbside bins, or visit any of the more than 1,500 recycling centers across the state that offer cash refunds, or California redemption value.

Reduce waste

Limiting your use of plastic, disposable items like bottles and utensils can help reduce waste, as does using reusable bags. CalRecycle , an agency that joins the state’s recycling and waste management programs, also recommends composting, which can help “by reducing organic materials disposed in landfills where they form methane.” (Landfills are among the largest sources of man-made methane.)

Use public transportation

In 2019, emissions from transportation accounted for about 29 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency , making it the largest contributor.

Still, public transportation provides a low-emissions alternative to driving, and many transit agencies across the state are moving toward zero-emission buses.

Manage your water use

With most of California in drought , conserving water has become a part of everyday life for many. American Rivers, a conservation organization, offers 10 ways you can save water at home, including managing how often you water your lawn, turning off your faucet when you brush your teeth and using a low-flow shower head.

This is hardly an exhaustive list of ways to make changes that can help the environment, but it’s a start. (And if you’re looking for a fun craft project to commemorate the day, try making this papier-mâché globe — using recycled newspaper, of course.)

There’s a lot at stake when it comes to climate change, and the facts aren’t always easy to find. Use our guide to the science of climate change to find the answers to the most common questions.

This illustrated, interactive guide for kids shows how we got where we are today and what the future might hold. (Long story short: It depends on us.)

Understanding the climate crisis is tough. Here are five podcasts that can guide you through the problems, and the potential solutions.

Here are tips on how to make less trash , from the person who led the effort to make Chou Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus the “greenest academic building in the country.”

(This article is part of the California Today newsletter. Sign up to get it delivered to your inbox.)

Here’s what else to know today

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced a drought emergency for Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, The Press Democrat reported. Mr. Newsom called the conditions in the region more “acute and dramatic” than in other parts of the state.

Austin Beutner, the Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent, said he would step down from the role at the end of his contract in June. “It’s been a long three years,” he said in an interview .

A new study suggests that people who don’t get enough sleep in their 50s and 60s may be more likely to develop dementia when they are older .

Wanda Johnson, the mother of Oscar Grant, who was fatally shot by a BART officer in 2009, offered guidance and empathy for the parents of Daunte Wright, according to The San Francisco Chronicle .

Vanessa Bryant is trying to hold law enforcement to account in ways that are uncommon for women, all while navigating her grief after the deaths of her 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and her husband, Kobe Bryant.

Young Vietnamese-Americans are trying to counter social media algorithms that are drawing their families into conspiracy theories and misinformation, including about the coronavirus vaccines, BuzzFeed News reports.

A Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputy will be charged in the 2018 killing of an unarmed man during a slow-speed pursuit, The Mercury News reports.

A former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association likened the Black Lives Matter movement to a hate group in an email, igniting a firestorm within the organization, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Los Angeles may become the latest California city to try a universal basic income — of $1,000 a month, The Los Angeles Times reports.

“Made in L.A. 2020: a version,” which spotlights work by 30 Los Angeles-based artists, represents an effort by the Huntington to expand its contemporary art programming and present more artists of color .

Real Estate: Here’s a look at what $3 million gets you in California .

And Finally …

A “crisis,” The San Francisco Chronicle called the situation a little more than a week ago. Our Bay Area-based colleague Kellen Browning described it as a panic.

“I was shocked,” a student at the University of California, Irvine, told him. “What am I going to do now?”

People “are freaking out,” The Los Angeles Times declared .

It’s all because the nation is headed for an unprecedented shortage of boba — and more specifically the tapioca used to make boba — amid what Kellen wrote is a “monthslong maritime pileup at ports in Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

The pandemic has affected global supply chains in all sorts of ways. In this case, surging, pent-up demand for stuff being shipped from overseas, like the tapioca from Asia, is colliding with a slowing of work at ports, related to the coronavirus.

Brian Tran, a co-owner of Honeybear Boba in San Francisco, told Kellen he had been searching desperately for more tapioca.

“A boba shop without boba is like a car dealership without cars to sell,” Mr. Tran said. “It’s like a steakhouse without steak.”

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected] . Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here .

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter .

Priya Arora was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, and graduated from U.C. Irvine. They are currently a social media editor on the Audience team, and also write about South Asian pop culture for The Times.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

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Reduce, reuse and recycle: The “three Rs” to help the planet

Last update: 16/02/2022

Every 60 seconds, about a million drinks (mainly in plastic containers) are sold worldwide. That massive amount plus the other things that come in plastic add up to more than 350 million tonnes a year. Reducing, reusing and recycling plastic is key in countering the devastation wreaked by climate change .

Plastics are a major source of pollution on Earth . Unbridled manufacturing and low recycling rates of plastic products threaten our planet. Despite heightened awareness about recycling, we’re still far from turning things around.

Our oceans alone hold more than 8 million tonnes that come out of rivers. The United Nations warns that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 if we don’t take forceful action against the devastation it’s causing to our planet.

Reduce, reuse and recycle to fight climate change

A plastic bottle is estimated to take about 1,000 years to decompose (or 450 years if it’s left outside). Consumers play an important role in reducing pollution. Following the “three Rs” (reduce, reuse and recycle) is a way to do it.

Reduce : we can take this primary step when using water, electricity or gas (e.g., switching off devices or turning off the tap when we're not using them), or even when selecting items at the supermarket (e.g., products from close to where we live waste less on transport).
Recycle: we can do this simple act by sorting waste into specific containers. Processing recycled waste properly not only reduces gases and toxic waste, but also leads to new manufactured products.
Reuse : this is when we repurpose things for a “second life”, like turning glass food jars into pen holders or old clothes into dust rags.

Our environmental duty

At Santander, we’re serious about sustainability . We're aiding our customers’ transition towards a green economy , and our Group and subsidiaries have eco-friendly initiatives across our footprint.

of our energy from clean sources by 2025

single-use plastic at our branches by 2021

At Santander Argentina , we’re working with co-ops to process waste from our main offices and branches in towns with recycling systems. Read more in this article (in Spanish) by Santander Post .

In Spain , in 2019 we became the first bank to receive “Zero waste” certification from AENOR for waste management and employee awareness measures at the Santander Group City , for which as much as 90% of the waste we make goes back into the value chain.

Our Group's milestones include carbon-neutrality in all operations and, this year, we’re working on eliminating unnecessary single-use plastic at our branches. Other goals we've set for ourselves are sourcing electricity entirely from renewable resources by 2025 and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

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Take Action: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

In Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle , we’re exploring Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences , which summarizes the most important principles and concepts of climate science. In addition to the seven essential principles, the document also includes the Guiding Principle for Informed Climate Decisions. It states:

Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts .

How can elementary teachers incorporate this guiding principle into their classroom? An emerging best practice from climate research is that teachers are better able to avoid overwhelming students, transcend boredom, and engage students by weaving science content with solutions. In this column, we help you and your students make the connection between knowledge and action.

In this issue, we focus on Essential Principle 5: Our understanding of the climate systems is improved through observations, theoretical studies, and modeling. Unlike columns in past issues , in this column there isn’t an obvious connection to an action that students can take to reduce climate change. So instead, we’ve chosen to highlight three simple actions that can have great impact: reducing, reusing, and recycling.

The answer is that manufacturing products, transporting them for sale, and managing the resulting waste all require energy, resulting in greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, logging forests for paper and other products made from wood removes an important means of carbon sequestration . Reducing the amounts of products we use by purchasing less, using an item as many times as possible, and recycling items when they are no longer usable will decrease the number of products manufactured, resources consumed, and greenhouse gases emitted.

In the past, of the 3Rs recycling has received the most emphasis. Many of us recycle at home, at school or the office, and even in airports and at sporting events. While recycling is important and should be encouraged, reducing our use of products and reusing what we do have are even more important. Be creative! There are many ways to reuse items that we would normally consider to be trash, and to repurpose items commonly found around your home.

Many of these tips can be applied to the classroom. Empty jars and containers can hold pencils. Create a paper bin so that students can reuse backs of papers for scratch paper, drawing, or coloring. (Once both sides have been used, the paper can be recycled). Old socks make great erasers for white boards. Creating a classroom environment where the 3Rs are put into practice provides a strong model for students’ own behavior.

Another practice, termed “upcycling,” refers to the process of taking products that would normally be thrown out and turning them into something of greater value. The extent of upcycling seems to be limited only by one’s creativity. Handbags are made out of juice packs or soda cans. Scrabble tiles are turned into jewelry. Old sweaters are made into coin purses. The list goes on and on! You can introduce your students to upcycling by using a variety of “trash” objects (styrofoam meat trays, egg cartons, toilet paper tubes, magazines) to create art projects.

When you are engaged in recycling or upcycling activities with your students, take the time to explicitly talk about why these kinds of activities are important. You don’t need to discuss climate change in detail to do so. Instead, you can keep the conversation focused on saving resources – a more age-appropriate topic for elementary students. Encourage students to identify ways that the 3Rs can be applied in their classrooms, schools, homes, and communities, and help them act on their ideas. You’ll not only teach science content but also empower students to make a difference.

A Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change This web site for students in grade 3 and up is divided into four sections: Learn the Basics, See the Impacts, Think Like a Scientist, and Be Part of the Solution. One of the suggested solutions is to reduce waste , which explores how the 3Rs are connected to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Trash and Climate Change Activity Book This downloadable PDF includes passages, crossword puzzles, math activities and more – all designed to help students think about reducing climate change by reducing, reusing, and recycling. Best for students in grade 3 and up. From the Kids’ Activities page of the EPA Climate Change web site.

Up-Cycle Your Arts and Crafts for Earth Day This site provides ideas for taking something disposable and transforming it into something useful and lovely. Look around your home and you’re sure to find plenty of objects you can use.

This article was written by Jessica Fries-Gaither. Jessica is an education resource specialist at The Ohio State University and project director of Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle and Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears . She has taught in elementary and middle school settings. Email Jessica at [email protected] .

Copyright September 2011 – The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1034922. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This work is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license .

Revise, reuse, recycle: how to be a sustainable student

From cutting out beef to repairing old clothes, here are some tips for freshers who want to be green at university

As university doors opened in September for a new year, an estimated 6 million people across the world took to the streets in a historic week of climate action .

The power of this youth-led uprising reflected the urgency for action on the environment. So what now? For freshers starting a new chapter at university, deciding how to live your life is vital. Here are some ideas for how you can be sustainable as a student.

What you put on your plate matters: nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gases come from agriculture , and most of those are from meat and dairy. Cutting out meat (if you’re able to) is an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint, and you’ll save money too.

A meat-free diet has been recommended as the “single-biggest way” an individual can reduce their impact on the planet. Meat and dairy consumption result in excessive land use, industrial emissions, methane, water use and deforestation.

Universities are now reacting to this: Goldsmiths has scrapped the sale of all beef products from its campus as it seeks to become carbon neutral by 2025. “The growing global call for organisations to take seriously their responsibilities for halting climate change is impossible to ignore,” the university’s warden, Frances Corner, said.

This year scientists devised a planetary health diet , presenting a way to address the environmental (and health) impact of our food choices. It recommends the global average consumption of red meat should be cut by half, while vegetables, fruit, pulses and nuts should double.

Whatever you choose to eat, try to shop locally and seasonally. You’ll most likely avoid the plastic packaging you find in supermarkets, and these products will have a lower carbon footprint. If you have the space – even just a windowsill will do – try growing some of your own herbs or vegetables; it’s amazing what you can get from just a window box planter. You can also reduce food waste by planning meals in advance, eating leftovers and sharing meals with friends.

Forget fast fashion: keeping your clothes for as long as possible has much more than just monetary value. In the UK, clothing has the fourth-largest environmental impact after housing, transport and food. We throw away more than half of our fast-fashion items within less than a year.

So recycle your clothes, mend them, or accessorise them. If you don’t have those skills see if there’s a sewing society you could join, or head to a repair cafe where people mend clothes for free. Try clothes swaps with friends, and instead of buying new items head to a charity or second-hand shop.

If you want to buy new clothes, says Ynes Patat, a fashion student at the University of Northampton, “look at brands that appeal to your style but research to see if they do have sustainable qualities, like Patagonia or Pact (they prize themselves on being organic, GOTS-certified, fair trade and eco-friendly). Even some high street stores are turning to more sustainable fashion.”

There are simple ways to change household habits and live more sustainably.

For some freshers, this will be your first time living alone, which means doing your own decorating, washing, cooking and cleaning. There are simple ways you can change your habits to live more sustainably. Wash your clothes at a lower temperature, and opt for a bamboo toothbrush or more eco-friendly sanitary products . Invest in a clothes horse so you stop using a tumble drier (you’ll be surprised how much your energy bill goes down). When shopping, see if there’s a zero-waste shop nearby – Sheffield students’ union has opened a store selling dried food, household products, toiletries and kitchenware all free from plastic packaging. Just turn up with your own container.

Of course, the easiest way to make a difference is to cut out flying. A return trip from Manchester to Berlin produces about 214 kg of CO2 ; there are 15 countries where the average person produces less CO2 in a year. If you’re planning a weekend away with new friends, try and travel by train or bus instead.

Campaigning

Individual actions matter, as they demonstrate commitment and provide an alternative to how we can live. But campaigning and activism are important too. University campuses can be the perfect place for this: 91% of students are now concerned about climate change, according to a survey from the NUS. If you don’t know where or how to start, see if there are any societies at your university like Extinction Rebellion or UK Student Climate Network. Look at People and Planet’s university league – where does your university rank and what needs to change? Students of the fossil free campaign, for example, have brought on huge changes by calling on their institutions to divest from fossil fuels – and 76 UK universities have now committed to divest.

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Opinion Can the world really engineer its way out of climate change?

Readers are skeptical. They’re also eyeing their recycling bins with dismay, dreaming of gardens full of native plants and cheering on the EPA.

It was reckless of the Editorial Board to describe large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate systems as “cheap and potentially game-changing.” Moreover, the sort of diplomacy the editorial called for is occurring; it just isn’t producing the results The Post prefers.

The Editorial Board criticized the failure to adopt a Swiss proposal at a recent United Nations Environment Assembly. However, the board failed to note that at the same meeting, 54 African countries, with the support of Colombia and other Global South countries, called for a mechanism to ensure that solar geoengineering would not be used. Their objections include concerns that the continent could be used as an experimental zone whose people and lands are harmed first and worst, and worries that such mitigation efforts are just an excuse for wealthy countries to continue consuming in the same damaging ways, and at the same rate.

This echoes the call by more than 450 scholars for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering , which notes the unacceptable risk posed by solar geoengineering and the impossibility of fair and effective governance in our current world order. These unproven technologies carry incredibly dangerous risks, among them altering weather patterns across the globe with unknown impacts to ecosystems and biodiversity. Agricultural patterns could be upended, threatening food and water supplies for many millions.

Geoengineering is the ultimate dangerous distraction from bringing about what is unambiguously necessary: a just and equitable fossil fuel phaseout. Our governments don’t need to regulate solar geoengineering. For the sake of a truly sustainable future, they need to permanently ban it.

Benjamin Day , Boston

The writer is a senior campaigner with Friends of the Earth’s climate and energy justice team.

I found the April 28 editorial, “ Who gets to decide to re-engineer the weather? ,” somewhat troubling. Sending sulfur up into the air could increase the possibility of acid rain and harm to plants that remove carbon dioxide and feed people. But we do need creative solutions for managing extreme weather.

Some years ago, I sent an idea to NASA about releasing a test dose of biodegradable iron particles into the atmosphere. These would concentrate near Earth’s magnetic poles to protect the ice caps yet allow solar rays to help crops and forests to grow in temperate and tropical zones along the equator. I never heard back, which reflects domestic inertia, not only the lack of international effort mentioned in the editorial. We need an open forum of ideas, supported by carbon taxes, as it seems today’s world is headed toward the disastrous solution of nuclear winter.

Henry Chang , Bethesda

One word: Plastics

Regarding Eve O. Schaub’s April 23 Tuesday Opinion essay, “ How to celebrate Earth Day? Just dump this toxic stuff. ”:

What a disheartening piece on the futility of plastic recycling. I’m not saying it’s incorrect, just sad.

This is not the first time I’ve heard that recycling plastic might be ineffective. Opinions seem to range from the argument that recycling plastic is well-intentioned but useless, to suggestions that the process is pure hype for marketing purposes (so-called greenwashing). Yet my recycle bin overfloweth!

Given this situation, reducing plastic use is critical, and I suggest a good target is packaging. The amount of entirely unnecessary plastic bags, wraps, ties and fillers that come with every consumer item is staggering. In my experience, Apple is a huge abuser in this regard, with even a simple USB cable packed as though it’s a Christmas gift going to the moon. Another example everyone encounters is bedding that comes in sturdy plastic zipper cases. They might look cute lined up on store shelves, but the case could easily be replaced with cloth or cardboard. Take your own inventory; across every type of product and use, excessive plastic packaging is a scourge on the environment and our health.

Of course, a major change would affect the plastics and packaging industries, the workers they employ and the whole supply chain. Somehow we must take that into account as we move toward environmentally friendly solutions.

Eric Wenocur , Olney

Eve O. Schaub’s argument that recycling plastic is a waste of time took a zero-sum approach to an issue that is complicated — and continually improving.

“Plastics” is a broad category of materials with differing chemical compositions and mechanical properties, all of which affect potential recyclability. That is why the recycling rates for different plastic resin types vary significantly, and why the average recycling rate for plastics is low despite some categories of plastics having high recycling rates.

Over the past several years, the recycled-materials industry has made significant investments in technology, education and partnerships to improve plastics recycling rates, and we are seeing improvements as a result for certain resins.

According to the U.S. Plastic Recycling Study , in 2022, more than 5 billion pounds of post-consumer plastic were recovered for recycling (though that figure does represent a slight decline in volume from the previous two years). More than 95 percent of recovered bottles stayed in North America to be remanufactured into new products.

There is still a long way to go, but manufacturers are increasing the use of recycled content and making products that are easier to recycle. They are recognizing the societal value and the demand from their customer base. My organization, for example, is working closely with Colgate-Palmolive, Starbucks and others to address product recyclability and find ways to strengthen recycling across all material categories.

Making a real difference will require a broad commitment from consumers, manufacturers, scientists, engineers and policymakers. This effort is worth everyone’s time.

Robin Wiener , Washington

The writer is president of the Recycled Materials Association.

Regarding the April 26 news article “ Massive volunteer-aided study reveals biggest known plastic polluters ”:

I was disappointed to read that U.S. negotiators at international meetings concerning plastic pollution have been resistant to an agreement that would limit plastic production.

I was a child in the 1940s, and I remember the milkman delivering milk in glass bottles to our house and retrieving the empty bottles for reuse. It was common practice. I drank my share of soft drinks then, but always from glass bottles. We have tried a plastic recycling approach for many decades, and it is apparent this is not working from an environmental perspective. It is time to phase back into the approach that was better for the environment by putting the emphasis on using, and reusing, glass. And if the glass cannot be reused, it can be recycled with a better outcome than trying to recycle plastic.

Robert F. Benson , Silver Spring

Bring back the birds

Regarding Dana Milbank’s April 28 Sunday Opinion essay, “ This tiny flower teaches us all we need to know about growing old ”:

I enjoy reading about Mr. Milbank’s adventures on his new homestead in Virginia’s Piedmont region. This essay about native wildflowers and tree planting was wonderful.

As an avid birdwatcher, I spent more than 20 years in Northern Virginia watching a lot of great habitat being bulldozed and turned into five-acre “estates," a fancy term for a fairly good-sized house with a lawn that was usually mowed down to the nubbin. One maple tree or dogwood would pass for landscaping. Often, streets in these neighborhoods would be named for the birds that used to live there but that no longer had places to nest and feed: Cardinal Court, Bluebird Lane, etc.

I hope Mr. Milbank’s essay will inspire more homeowners to plant trees and wildflowers that are native instead of invasives such as Bradford pears, which are illegal in a growing number of states. This change could do wonders for all the birds that are under threat from increased development.

Rich Rieger , Schuylkill Haven, Pa.

Good for the EPA

Regarding the April 26 Economy & Business article “ EPA rules would slash pollution from power plants ”:

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules limiting coal-fired power-plant emissions will ensure that the United States remains competitive in the renewable-energy economy as well as protect human health and all life. The power industry and its friends have protested that the new rules will be “unrealistic” and “unachievable” and don’t allow enough time to comply. But this argument ignores the fact that the industry has dragged its feet in reducing emissions in the 15 years since the EPA labeled greenhouse gases a health hazard.

Moreover, the power and fossil-fuel industries have both wasted decades of precious time since scientists concluded fossil fuel emissions drive climate change. Given the “pro-life” Republican Party’s opposition to alleviating this threat to life, the outcome of November’s election could very well determine whether power plants will finally clean up their acts — or climate change will be “baked in” to our future.

Michael Wright , Glen Rock, Pa.

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COMMENTS

Reduce, recycle and reuse to decrease climate change
We all can make a difference by reducing consumption. We can help protect our natural resources and reduce the amount of waste produced by following the three R's: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.). Reduce the amount of products you use. Reuse products instead of throwing them away.
The impact of recycling on climate change
Recycling helps combat the climate crisis by limiting the use of raw materials and reducing waste going into landfills. Project Drawdown estimates that recycling between 2020 and 2050 will reduce emissions by 5.5 to 6.02 gigatons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking over one billion cars off the streets for one year.
Does recycling actually help the climate? » Yale Climate Connections
Myth: "Reduce," "reuse," and "recycle" are equally beneficial. Plastics can only be recycled a finite number of times at best, sometimes only once, due to structural and composition breakdowns during the recycling process. This process involves melting, during which the material loses its integrity and gathers contaminants.
Reduce. Reuse. And Then, When All Else Fails, Recycle
By the time the slogan, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," was popularized in the 1970s, our consumerist economy was in full swing. Manufacturers couldn't afford to have people buying less by reducing purchases and reusing products, and people weren't interested in reducing their consumption. While recycling should have been the last resort ...
Recycling our way to sustainability
The potential environmental impact is also clear. The move to a circular economy — a system that aims to reduce, reuse and recycle materials — could address 70% of global greenhouse emissions ...
Would stopping plastic pollution help with climate change? How do we do
Plastic pollution does contribute a bit to climate change—and slowing the production of non-degradable plastics has other large benefits for natural ecosystems. August 16, 2022. Over a century after the first fully synthetic plastic debuted, plastic waste is a major problem. Eight to 12 million tons of it enter global oceans annually, where ...
How Useful Is Recycling, Really?
Recycling does have value. It is one of the easier climate-friendly acts individuals can undertake, and it reduces the extraction of virgin materials. "Any time you use renewable resources, or ...
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Most of All, Reduce.
Most of All, Reduce. About 4.5 pounds. That's the amount of trash—banana peels, frayed toothbrushes, busted electronics, plastic wrappers, greasy pizza boxes—that the average American ...
Does recycling help fight climate change?
Reduce, reuse, recycle is a familiar mantra the world over. Recycling has been described as 'one of the easier climate-friendly acts" that individuals can do.
Recycling: Beyond the Bin
It keeps trash out of our landfills, saves energy, preserves natural resources and wildlife, and reduces our carbon footprint. And plenty of people do it: In 1980, recycling and composting kept 14 ...
Combating Climate Change Through Recycling
The recycling program began in June, 2013, and about 25 community members are currently involved. Helping the planet. Recycling saves energy and prevents extraction of raw materials, helping to combat climate change. It also helps reduce waste, and therefore pollution. Recycling reduces environmental impact as a whole, contributing to a ...
The 3 R's
The 3 R's hierarchy starts with "Reduce," the best way to manage waste. Then comes "Reuse," and lastly "Recycle.". This hierarchy shows that it's best to reduce and reuse items first. Recycling uses more energy and resources and has a bigger environmental impact. "Reduce" is the leader because it makes sure you don't buy ...
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Why All 3 R's Are Critical to a Circular
The move to a circular economy—a system that aims to reduce, reuse and recycle materials—could address 70% of global greenhouse emissions. As the benefits stack up, this transition is becoming ...
PDF Trash and Climate Change: Planet Protectors Discover the Hidden Reasons
the Trash and Climate Change fortune teller game. Print out the last two pages and follow the directions for making a "fortune teller" game that you can play with your friends to learn more about the products you use and how they affect the climate. A New Reason to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle 3 booklet.qxd 6/27/00 5:20 PM Page 5
New report unveils what plastic makers knew about recycling : NPR
An ExxonMobil spokesperson said in a statement in November 2023 that the company is "launching real solutions to address plastic waste and improve recycling rates." The company has previously said ...
How You Can Help the Climate This Earth Day
Recycle. Nearly every bottle or can you use can be recycled, and you don't need to wash or crush them. You can use curbside bins, or visit any of the more than 1,500 recycling centers across the ...
Reduce, reuse and recycle: The "three Rs" to help the planet
Reduce, reuse and recycle to fight climate change. A plastic bottle is estimated to take about 1,000 years to decompose (or 450 years if it's left outside). Consumers play an important role in reducing pollution. Following the "three Rs" (reduce, reuse and recycle) is a way to do it.
Reuse Revolution: How a Circular Economy Can Fight Climate Change
To reduce atmospheric carbon, efficient energy must be complemented by eliminating waste. In lieu of landfills, a circular economy where raw materials are continuously reused and recycled is pivotal to a sustainable future. Typically consigned to the landfill, Aquafil uses old carpets are to create its new nylon yarns, reducing both energy use ...
Take Action: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
This downloadable PDF includes passages, crossword puzzles, math activities and more - all designed to help students think about reducing climate change by reducing, reusing, and recycling. Best for students in grade 3 and up. From the Kids' Activities page of the EPA Climate Change web site. Up-Cycle Your Arts and Crafts for Earth Day.
10 ways you can help fight the climate crisis
Here are 10 ways you can be part of the climate solution: 1. Spread the word. Encourage your friends, family and co-workers to reduce their carbon pollution. Join a global movement like Count Us In, which aims to inspire 1 billion people to take practical steps and challenge their leaders to act more boldly on climate.
Revise, reuse, recycle: how to be a sustainable student
University campuses can be the perfect place for this: 91% of students are now concerned about climate change, according to a survey from the NUS. If you don't know where or how to start, see if ...
Climate Change and Waste
Our Wasteful Impact on Climate Change. Rising levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are already changing our climate. Some of these emission increases can be traced directly to our solid waste. Solid waste contributes directly to greenhouse gas emissions through the generation of methane from the anaerobic decay of waste in ...
Opinion
According to the U.S. Plastic Recycling Study, in 2022, more than 5 billion pounds of post-consumer plastic were recovered for recycling (though that figure does represent a slight decline in ...
Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the
Increasing transmission capacity can enhance reliability by increasing the amount of generation that can access the grid to help meet demand. Furthermore, there are new technologies coming online that can also help provide reliability attributes. The deployment of many of these technologies has been accelerating due to the incentives in the IRA.