Recycling refers to the process of converting waste materials into new products, reducing waste sent to landfills and conserving natural resources.
Types of Recycling
There are three main types of recycling:
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Primary recycling: Also called closed-loop recycling, involves collecting, sorting, and processing waste materials into new products of the same type.
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Secondary recycling: Reusing materials for other purposes without reprocessing.
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Tertiary recycling: Chemically altering materials to make them reusable.
Recycling requires a large, stable supply of waste materials. Laws establishing mandatory collection and recycling targets help create such supplies. The more target material collected, the higher the quality of the final recycled product.
Examples
- Primary: Aluminum cans remelted into new cans.
- Secondary: Using collected glass bottles for landscaping instead of remelting.
- Tertiary: Breaking down plastics chemically to make new materials.