Economic Benefits Of Recycling

‘Recycling’, a term that has been in existence for decades, has gained immense importance and limelight in recent years after the disastrous consequences of global warming became visible. In simple terms, recycling can be defined as a process in which parts of our waste items are broken down into their original elements and are then used to manufacture new products. With shrinking raw material supplies and with the threat of global warming, manufacturers are today forced to go green in their production and sensible in their use of raw materials. Most of the products today are made and designed to be recycled. All that one has to do is to collect together all the waste products that can be recycled because recycling along with helping the environment has many economic benefits as well. Read on to understand the need for recycling and the various benefits of recycling to the economy of a country. 

• One of the most important economic benefits of recycling is the optimal utilization of resources. Recycling includes the processing of used raw materials into new products or into raw materials for other products. This will prevent the waste of the useful materials, reduce the consumption of new raw materials, cut down on energy usage and will also reduce air and water pollution!
• Recycling helps in reducing the cost by providing fresh supply of the same material. For example, used office paper can be recycled and used again. This in turn will cut down on your cost involved in buying new set of office paper. Similarly, you can recreate the value of a product by recycling it and thus reducing the cost involved in the purchase of a new product.
• Recycling of any product has many economic benefits, one of it being saving money. It is cheaper to make products out of recycled materials than purchasing new materials to make a fresh product. For example, purchasing fresh steel will cost twice as much as recycled steel.
• Waste materials need to be landfilled, and that involves certain costs. However, if communities resort to recycling, it will bring down the amount of waste to be disposed thereby cutting down waste disposal costs. These recycled materials once sold will help communities to make up for disposal costs, thereby further reducing expenditure.
• Cutting down on disposal waste through recycling will not only cut down on the cost of disposal, but will also save acres of landfill space which can then be utilised for other productive purposes. In countries where land is scarce, saving on landfill space will mean saving millions and will instead bring profits if the land is used for other functions.
• Another important contribution of recycling is that it helps in generating new trade and businesses. Recycling will give rise to transport, processing and selling businesses. It will also increase the profit for companies that deal in the manufacture and sale of recycled products. Advancement and growth of these sectors will also help in generating new job opportunities that will pool in the unemployed section of the society.
• One of the direct benefits of recycling to the economy is that it helps in generating revenue for the economy through material sales. There is a market for recycled materials and the return on investment (ROI) in the recycling industry is much higher than the returns from any other industry. With the growth of the recycling business, the recycling industry is growing by leaps and bounds creating new opportunities and pooling in profits into the economy. It is an industry that along with creating value for waste products provides enough revenue to the country.