These plastic bottles don't need to be here - they can become recycled plastic picnic tables and any number of products
Happy Earth Day fellow Earthlings! How will you honor the Earth this year? Recycling, cleaning up litter or writing to your congressmen are all a good start. But there's an essential part of going green that many people overlook: supporting recycling efforts by buying recycled products that range from recycled plastic picnic tables to paper for your copy machine.
The key to recycling is the reuse of our natural resources. That process starts with gathering recyclable materials. Offices and homes across America take the extra effort to have special recycling bins for paper, plastic, aluminum, glass, and other materials. They carefully educate themselves on proper recycling and their efforts aren't wastedâ€â€Âthey successfully avoid overflowing landfills.
After recycled scrap is collected, companies manufacture a huge variety of recycled goods.
- Recycled newspaper becomes egg cartons and construction paper.
Recycled plastic picnic tables made from discarded milk jug - Recycling your cardboard means you might be using that same piece of cardboard a few months later as new cardboard or a paper bag.
- Recycled office paper can become toilet paper, paper towels, or napkins. Don't throw out old tin cans, since they can recycle as appliances or bicycle and car parts.
- Plastic brings some of the biggest variety, since recycled plastic can lead to buckets, park benches, Frisbees, stadium seats, commercial picnic tables, sleeping bags, backpacks, recycled plastic trash receptacles, and even carpet.
Once the recycled goods are manufactured into new useful items, there's one more step in the recycling process: purchasing. If customers don't buy recycled products, it greatly decreases the demand within the market and forces companies to abandon the recycled products. Buying recycled products is the last critical step in completing the recycling loop from gathering to manufacturing to purchasing.
Companies, cities, and associations looking to reduce their carbon footprint should consider implementing a program to buy recycled products to help close this recycling loop. In the 1990s, several mega-corporations with this common goal, including Bank of America, American Airlines, and Coca-Cola, joined the Buy Recycled Business Alliance. In just a year, the combined efforts of the alliance led to $3 billion in purchases for recycled goods. Similarly, you can join programs like the EPA's WasteWise initiative to commit to both recycling and purchasing recycled products.
Buying recycled goods can also start on an individual scale. Carefully read the labels of products your purchase to determine if they are made from recycled materials. Make sure you always purchase recycle highly reusable materials like aluminum, plastic bottles, newspaper, and cardboard. Aluminum cans are especially essential to recycle since they require 95% less energy when recycled than when creating new ones.
According to Recycle Works, one ton of 100% recycled paper saves 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 4,100 kwh of energy (enough to power a home for 6 months), 60 pounds of air pollution, and 2.5 cubic yards of landfill space. Imagine the difference this can make if everyone decided to purchase recycled paper instead of new paper.
As you help make the Earth a little greener this Earth Day, don't forget to close the recycling loop by purchasing recycled products. It's an essential part of recycling that often gets overlooked.
Special note: In honor of Earth Day, The Park and Facilities Catalog will donate through May a portion of sales of All of our recycled plastic picnic tables, park benches and commercial trash cans to the Everglades Foundation.
This worthy organization is leading the fight to restore this precious ecosystem that starts up near Orlando and heads all the way south to Florida Bay. The foundation's mission is to clean up the water quality which faces pollution from the north. For example, pollution enters into Lake Okeechobee and then is discharged into the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, severally damaging waterways and marine life along the way. An overabundance of phosphorous harm water quality, not just in South Florida but around the world.
For recycled outdoor products including recycled picnic tables, park benches and commercial trash receptacles and our fund-raising promotion for this great organization, take a look at The Park Catalog's recycled products page.