Recycling a cost-effective new year resolution

Here’s a resolution that’s easy to keep: Recycle.

Can you think of any good reason not to? Neither can I.

But I can think of lots of reasons I should. First of all, recycling really works. Recycling makes products, not waste. Ranging from items as small as a paper clip or as massive as an airplane, many things we use are made from recycling. For example, in the year 2000, recycling contributed 80 billion tons of metal, more than half of the U.S. metal supply, and valued at over $17 billion.

Recycling makes economic sense. Papers, metals and plastics have a real and increasing value in the commodity market. Domestic and overseas factories have found good use for the items we toss, pushing demand beyond supply. Paper can be recycled up to seven times before the fibers become too short. Even milk jugs, frequently mistaken as

nonrecyclable, can be remade into many things, such as Adirondack chairs, toys, plastic containers and much more. Made from high-density polyethylene, also known as No. 2 plastic, milk jugs are one of the highest-valued recyclables, commanding more than $700 per ton in the marketplace. Our cardboard, newspapers and packaging continue to be lucrative. That’s because manufacturing from recycled materials is smart on many levels.

In most cases, recycling can save money for a community. A primary reason is that each ton of recycling translates into avoided disposal fees. The right economy of scale – more recycling, less trash – creates a cost -ffective system. And recycling is a business that makes money, grossing $222 billion annually in revenues here in the U.S. Take a look at what your town is sending to the landfill or the waste-to-energy plant. Even in places with strong recycling programs, we are still spending thousands of dollars to bury or burn materials that could be turned into products and profit. We can fix this. The way is to get everyone on board recycling as much as they can. Why waste when we can recycle?

Recycling is more important now than ever. The environmental reasons are the same. Recycling gives us a chance to reduce the environmental effect of the products we use. The water and energy savings and reduced pollution from manufacturing with recycled materials are significant. For example, making a can from recycled aluminum uses 95 percent less energy than when a can is made from its raw material, bauxite. Not only does this reduce fuel use and emissions, it results in lower production costs.

There are other benefits, too. Consider for example, that by recycling the steel industry saves enough energy to power 18 million households for a whole year! That means that more is available for you and me. This is critical at a time when fuel costs and business and household needs are placing great stress on users.

If you still aren’t convinced, you might be pleased to learn that recycling helps create jobs. On a per ton basis, the recycling industry sustains 10 jobs for every job at a disposal facility, employs nearly 1 million people in the U.S. and generates an annual payroll of nearly $34 billion. In the state of Maine, we have factories and workers producing a variety of products from recycling, most notably paper goods and composite lumber.

Around the world, technologic and economic changes are making it easier than ever to recycle. Advances in processing equipment are simplifying how we sort materials. As recycling becomes more convenient, more and more Mainers are willing to recycle. Perhaps you are already one of them. If not, perhaps this new year you will resolve to recycle. I have.

To learn about recycling in Maine, what it becomes, and where it goes, visit www.mainerecycles.com

Jetta Antonakos is the waste management and recycling coordinator in the Maine State Planning Office.