BENEFITS OF RECYCLING

Waste recycling leaves our environment clean and beautiful. This can be an attraction for tourists. Recycling would also provide us with gas for cooking and power generation. For example, according to EPA, USA generated about 250million tones of solid waste in 2010. And recycling about 85million tones of these materials, this according to EPA, saved the US about 1.3 quadrillion Btu of energy, which is equivalent to 229million barrels of oil. Now, let consider Nigeria which generates over 65million tones of waste annually, if we replicate what the US is doing. And recycle about 34 percent of the waste, then we would be recycling about 22million tones of waste annually, this would save the country about 59million barrels of oil annually. This would go a long way in solving the major problem of this country which is power generation.

Recycling also has ripple effect employment generation potential. Experts would be employed in the recycling agencies to collect, transport, sort and even recycle the waste. Also other agencies or firms that supply them with recycling materials would employ people. With good waste management technique like recycling health hazards cause by indiscriminate disposal of waste would be minimized.

Recycling also uses less energy and is a great way of controlling air, water and land pollution. An effective recycling starts with the household or the where the waste was created. In most developed countries even in Nigeria the authorities helps the household with bin, bags are label and the household then sort out the waste themselves and place them in the right bags for collection.