Recycling. ​

Around the world, an estimated 15-20 million wastepickers earn a living from scavenging discards. Formalizing this sector offers huge opportunities to improve sanitary conditions, increase materials recovery and alleviate poverty in the world’s developing cities. 

There are numerous local, national and international industries that depend on recyclable materials. When you choose to recycle your discards, jobs are created in:

Subject | Subject

recycling

​​1. Collecting, processing and preparing materials. Your discarded materials are picked up and then brought to processing facilities where they are sorted and prepared to sell to markets.

2. Making new products from recycled materials (manufacturing). Your recyclables then head to manufacturing facilities that use recycled feedstocks, such as paper mills, metal smelters and plastic manufacturing facilities. Compost facilities turn your discarded yard and food scraps into valuable soil amendment.

3. Reuse and remanufacturing. Some discards are sorted and fixed up to be used again through computer refurbishers, thrift stores and auto salvage yards.

Recycling creates far more jobs than disposal

Recycling, reuse and remanufacturing create far more jobs than burying or burning our resources. In fact, 86% of the total U.S. jobs from managing our discards come from recycling activities, even though we only recycle about one-third of our discards.  

Recycling​