What Is Better For The Environment: Recycling Or Just Throwing Stuff Away?

Recycling is not without negative effects. It takes energy to save energy, and as far as financial costs, it can be more costly to recycle than to create new goods.
However, if we did not recycle, there would be much more going into landfills and degrading the environment, which is arguably worse than the energy costs of recycling itself.
The best alternative is really to overall reduce consumption. If you don’t use as many plastic pop bottles to begin with, you won’t be faced with the “to recycle or not to recycle” question at all.

Recycle please — childrens parks have been built from recycled plastic – books from newspapers.

recycling is better than throwing stuff away. why? less trash in the landfills and less energy to make new stuff to replace what was thrown away. also, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. you never know who might want a certain item that you don’t want anymore. check out freecycle.org.

Well since I was a kid I was told to recycle because everything recycled cand be reused, which would lead for less needs of producing even more junk.

It really depends on what is being recycled.
Some grades of plastic, you create more pollutants and waste trying to recycle than you do by making new plastic. And… its costs more to recycle than to make new.
Aluminum recycling saves a LOT of energy and is very effective in reducing pollution AND costs in making new aluminum products.
Generally, if the recycling can be done in a way that saves money it will also save energy and natural resources while reducing the rate we fill landfills.
If attempting to recycle something isn’t cost efficient… its probably not very effective at saving energy or resources and is just not worth bothering.
As technology improves… more things will become cost efficient to recycle.

recycling and re-using is always better
the pathogenic concept of waste is unique only to humans

recycling best because thing like your soda bottle can be used many many times . If you toss out your soda bottle it just accumulates in a garbage bin where it will sit for 1,000 years.
As they say one person can make a difference but if many join in and recycle there will be more to pass around and use. to use once is a waste. To recycle save from more trees being cut down and as said plastic’s made . trees and other materials take time to grow and make into a workable substance. reusing saves money and limited resources made available to us on earth and beyond to have these items available to use.
that good for ya

Recycling. We can do our own recycling, like using paper and kitchen scraps to make compost, taking used household goods and clothing to Good Will or other charity. I think a lot of the cardboard and tin cans are sent to other countries for reuse and thus our landfills get filled up more slowly.

Throwing stuff away is not the answer, but recycling with out the facts can be just as bad.
To start the order should be Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in that order if you wish to be green. There is also the idea of buying local to reduce impact from shipping and to support local sources.
The use of large scale Recycling like taking it to a drop off is not always a good idea. For example I lived city that was more than 1000 mile from a paper recycling plant. The impacts from shipping to the plant would exceed any benefit form Recycling. I Reduced my news paper subscription from a Daily (365/year) to a Sunday (52/year) only, I like the color comics. I continued to read the news just on-line, and the paper I did get I Recycled my self in a small compost pile.
We all need to take the time and ask the questions about our recycling efforts, and not just jump into the parade.

recycling paper is a good thing and recycling other things are good bcause we decrease polution like paper if everyone on this planet doen’t recycle paper we all die bcause we cut down trees to make paper and tree’s produce oxygen so…..
*******HELP EVERYONE AND START RECYCLING`~!!!!

They could have meant it is more costly to recycle in some cases, but it is definately better for the environment to recycle.

Recycling because it reduces the amount of waste that we have to bury

Hmmm. It’s hard to disagree with great minds like Penn and Teller; but I think that I’ll have to in this instance. Reusing is the best, recycling would be the next best and adding to our already heaping landfills would be pretty much the worst. Incinerating waste is as bad if not worse than landfills. For specific benefits of recycling, see the link below.

REUSING is better for the enviorment.