Recycling affects climate change by reducing the amount of Greenhouse Gases emitted during the production of a product. A can of soup requires ingredients collected from a farm for the soup, aluminum mined for the can, and paper from trees for the label. These resources then have to be delivered to a factory, which also uses resources in some form, for manufacturing. Recycling makes this more sustainable by reusing resources that could be actually finite. While the soup can’t be reused, the aluminum can be melted down and remade into another can or something else; even the label can be recycled into other paper products after.

In 2009, 42% of Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States were from the production and movement of goods. This could be reduced by having resources such as metal, paper, and plastics reused more regularly. By recycling, there would be less of a need to mine certain minerals or remove trees as the resources for certain goods. This will, in turn, reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions and get Climate Change under control.

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Other Sources

EPA. “Climate Change and Waste.” https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/climate-change-waste/. Accessed May 3, 2016.