What is recycling? Simply put, recycling is the collection of old materials-either from consumers or from manufacturers-that are then processed and used as the raw materials for new goods.

When did recycling start?
Ever since humans have worked with raw materials that had the potential for reuse, we've recycled: Think of lead, bronze, and brass, and then picture ancient vessels, tools, adornments, and coins. Glassmakers have always used old glass (called cullet) to make new. Before technology made mass production possible, humans routinely worked old clothing into updated fashions. When fibers became too worn, they were used for upholstery and, finally, became rags. Rag pickers collected these scraps, then sold them to mills, which made them into high-quality paper. Housewives returned metals to tinsmiths, and animal carcasses to "bone men," who sold them to manufacturers of buttons and knife handles. To save natural resources during World War II, U.S. communities held paper drives, can drives, and even grease drives (fat was used in making munitions).

Postwar prosperity put an end to all that. Instead, "New and Improved!" trumped thrift and reuse. Returning household goods to the manufacturing cycle fell by the wayside as mass production lowered the price of consumer goods and advertising promoted planned obsolescence.

In response to rising energy costs, the city of Madison, WI, started the first curbside recycling program in the nation, starting with newspapers in 1968. Other communities joined in. The first Earth Day, in 1970, gave the practice a boost, and soon the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began promoting recycling as a way to reduce the amount of trash headed for landfills and incinerators. There are currently more than 9,000 curbside recycling programs across the country (serving slightly less than half the population) and more than 20,000 drop-off recycling centers, where residents deliver their own materials. Recycling is a $236 billion industry, employing 1.1 million workers nationwide.

Costs for recycling vary widely from region to region: In the Northeast and the West, high fees for landfill tipping make recycling more attractive than in the rural areas of the Rocky Mountain West, where collection costs are high and land costs are lower. Independent studies put the average cost of residential recycling programs at about $2 per month per household, while the average cost of waste removal is $10 per household. But prices for recyclable commodities can fluctuate; when they're low, some communities (particularly in rural areas) may find it hard to justify collection and processing costs. Recycling advocates like to remind us that recycling more will reduce the number of trucks devoted to trash and also generate economies of scale. The more you collect, the more you can sell-assuming there's a market for your materials.

Why should we recycle?
On the back end-that is, after your trash leaves your house-recycling saves space in landfills so that more land isn't wasted (literally) and so that new incinerators don't have to be built. Recycling also reduces fees paid by taxpayers for tipping waste at dumps and incinerators, and it creates jobs. (According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, sorting and processing recyclables provides 10 times more jobs than landfilling or incineration on a per-ton basis.)

On the front end, making new goods from old goods-your cans, bottles, newspapers, and plastic-saves enormous amounts of energy. It prevents air and water pollution, and it generally keeps a whole lot more of our natural resources-trees, metals, water, oil, and gas-in their original place. That's good news for the other living organisms with which we share the planet. But there's more: All these environmental benefits add up to greenhouse gas savings. By using less energy, we dig for, drill for, and burn less coal and oil, and we avoid having to build new power plants. It adds up: Recycling at a national rate of 30 percent is the equivalent in greenhouse gas reductions of taking 25 million cars off the road. That's slightly more than all the cars registered in Florida, Texas, and New York State combined!

Where does everything go?
It depends on the material, and it depends on where you live. The recycling ecosystem has microclimates. What happens to paper in City A, for example, isn't necessarily what happens to paper in City B, C, or D. Mixed paper may be recycled into newsprint and paper towels locally, or it may be shipped to China and made into linerboard (the stuff used for cereal boxes) or other packaging. It depends on how close you live to a paper mill or a shipping port (scrap paper is currently the top U.S. export, by volume). Your town may accept juice cartons, but mine doesn't, because its recycling plant can't separate the layers of plastic, paper, and aluminum. Paper can be recycled a finite number of times: Every pass through the mill shortens its fibers until they get kicked out of the system (at which point they can still be used for kitty litter or plant-potting medium).

Metals are more straightforward. Because its essential properties don't change through the recycling process, aluminum can be recycled indefinitely-into building materials like windows and gutters, automobile parts, and new soda cans. Steel has the longest history of being recycled in this country: Recycled scrap is the primary feedstock of steel mills, which melt it for reuse in cars and appliances. Brass and copper are separated at scrap yards and sold as the raw material for pipes, fixtures, and other goods.

The most commonly collected and recycled plastic items in the United States are narrow-necked bottles marked with the number 1 inside chasing arrows (polyethylene terephthalate, or PET) or the number 2 (high-density polyethylene, or HDPE). The bottles are washed and shredded, then extruded (melted, that is) into fibers used for plastic strapping, fleece fabrics, carpeting, and sleeping-bag stuffing.

More than a third of the plastic collected in this country is exported to Asia. Mixed plastics-numbers 4, 5, 6, and sometimes 7-can be extruded into plastic lumber, used in decking and picnic tables, or into laundry-detergent bottles. Plastic marked number 3 is polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a contaminant to any recycling system: It's picked out and sent to the dump. Sticklers like to point out that transforming margarine tubs into decking isn't truly recycling. Rather, it's "downcycling," since these goods are likely to be landfilled-not recycled-when their usefulness comes to an end. Less than a quarter of all plastic beverage bottles in the U.S. get recycled.

Glass is a monkey wrench in many community recycling programs. It's heavy (which means it's expensive to transport), it comes in four colors, and it breaks easily. Across the country, glass has been dropped from many curbside programs for lack of a buyer. Currently, Americans recycle fewer than one-third of their glass bottles.

Some recycling facilities have equipment that can optically sort glass by color, which gives it higher value. Cities with strong markets for glass-such as container manufacturers, fiberglass companies, and the aerospace industry, which uses it for sanding-generally have strong glass-recycling programs. Cities without strong markets may use glass as aggregate in construction projects, mix it with asphalt to create "glasphalt" for paving, or pulverize it and give it to landfills to use as "cover." Glassmakers like to use as much recycled glass as possible-up to 70 percent of the glass they mix with sand, soda ash, and limestone. This enables the other materials to melt at a lower temperature, which can yield energy savings of 30 percent or more. (Of course, if you have to haul this glass a long way to a recycling center and then to a glassmaking plant, those energy savings diminish.)

Is recycling doing any good?
In 1996, John Tierney wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine titled "Recycling Is Garbage." Claiming that recycling used more energy and other resources than it saved, the article caused an enormous fuss because it relied on information gathered in large part from institutions and consultants with ideological objections to recycling (some of which receive money from groups with a vested interest in the waste-hauling status quo).

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense crafted elaborate rebuttals to Tierney's report, concluding that recycling is, in fact, worthwhile. It saves energy, prevents air and water pollution, and keeps valuable resources out of dumps. But recycling isn't going to save the Earth. It depends on strong markets, and on economies of scale that are difficult for small communities to achieve. The population is growing, consumption of packaged goods keeps rising, and recycling rates in some cities are stagnant or falling. There are a couple reasons for that.

First, there's laziness. Some folks just won't wash out their jars and cans. Second, we're an increasingly mobile society, unwilling to hang on to a water bottle in our car or on the subway until we see a blue recycling bin (only 16 percent of water bottles are recycled). Third, many still question the value of recycling (call it the Tierney factor). And fourth, many are confused about how to do it properly. Public education often lags behind enthusiasm, and the rules often change as markets for recyclables change, technology changes, and budgets for collecting and transporting all this stuff get cut. (That's where the microclimate comes from.)

Ultimately, recycling can be only part of the solution to our solid-waste problems: It's the third component of the 3-R hierarchy, with reducing consumption first, followed by reusing goods and materials that have already been manufactured. (Other components of waste reduction are composting and forcing manufacturers to design with the environment in mind.) Consider making your next purchase through Craigslist, where you can find used sporting goods, household chattel, books, computers, jewelry, kids stuff, musical instruments, and much, much more-all arranged by community, nationwide. Another option, available in about 4,000 towns, is Freecycle, a nonprofit website where people get and give away stuff-for free.

When you do need to buy something new, don't forget to support companies that use recycled content-in paper towels, office paper, glass containers, laundry detergent bottles, plastic lumber. If we're not buying these goods, we're not signaling to the market that recyclables have value.

Can I recycle more than my containers and paper?
Yes. Municipalities also recycle construction and demolition debris, used motor oil, lead-acid batteries, and household toxins like mercury from thermometers, fluorescent lightbulbs, thermostats, and switches. Some towns recycle food scraps and yard waste into compost. Large retail chains like Staples and Office Max collect cell phones and rechargeable batteries (which contain nickel, cadmium, and other metals) for recycling. Most computer manufacturers accept their own equipment for recycling; ink and toner cartridges can also be recycled. Bring used textiles to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. If clothing and other fibers can't be repaired and reused, these charities will direct them toward a textile-recycling company, where they will be shredded and used in making wiping rags, fancy papers, filler in car insulation, roofing felt, loudspeaker cones, panel linings, and furniture padding.

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