Recycling

Recycling is the reprocessing of materials that would otherwise become waste in order to make them into new products. This is in contrast with reuse: collecting waste such as food containers to be cleaned, refilled and resold. Recycling prevents useful materials being landfilled or incinerated, reduces the consumption of raw materials, and normally requires less energy than virgin production. Commonly recycled materials include glass, paper, aluminium, asphalt, steel, textiles and plastic. These materials can be derived either from pre-consumer waste (materials used in manufacturing) or post-consumer waste (materials discarded by the consumer). Recycling is a key concept of modern waste management and is the third component of the waste hierarchy. To be recycled waste has to be sorted and separated into material types, this Waste sorting is perfomed either by the consumer or within specialised materials recovery facilitys.

There are two common household recycling methods; Kerbside collection (US: curbside collection) is where consumers leaves materials for recycling at the front of their property, typicially in boxes or sacks to be collected by a recycling vehicle. Alternatively the householder may take the materials to recycling banks (sometimes described as a 'bring system') where materials are placed into recycling bins based on their material type.