How serious is “reduce” in the recycling hierarchy?
Recycling is the process of converting post-industrial and post-consumer wastes into new materials and objects. Still, this concept is often coined to the recovery of energy from wastes (sadly, as a fraction only of the energy in remaking the wasted material or product). The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state. It is an alternative to “conventional” waste disposal that can save materials and help lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from having to replace the scraped goods. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy uses, air pollution (from incineration), and water contamination (from landfilling leakages).