How much energy is saved by recycling one plastic bottle?
January 24, 2012 by Admin
Filed under Discussions
I live in an apartment that does not have its own recycling program. In college, I had the same problem, but used a public recycling center Which was behind a grocery store (I would have driven to the grocery store anyway, so I was not wasting gas by going to this recycling center). I’m in a new town now, and the closest public recycling center is near nothing that I would drive to, so I am basically using energy (gas) in order to save energy. I am estimating, given my car’s gas mileage and the distance to the recycling center, I use about 0th 2 gallons of gasoline per trip. So, I want to know if I save energy by recycling more waste than I by driving. References appreciated. I know it takes less energy to make a plastic bottle from recycled materials than from raw materials, but I do not know how much less. According to this website (http://www drf umd edu/Recycling/documents/3-Stillnotconvinced pdf….): “A report on the production of plastic grocery carrier bags made from recycled rather than virgin polythene Concluded that the use of recycled plastic resulted in the following: reduction of energy consumption by 67% “So, as far as I know, making bottles from recycled plastic saves energy. I do not know if that site is reliable but, so far, no one has cited any sources.
How much energy is saved by recycling one plastic bottle?
January 24, 2012 by Admin
Filed under Discussions
I live in an apartment that does not have its own recycling program. In college, I had the same problem, but used a public recycling center Which was behind a grocery store (I would have driven to the grocery store anyway, so I was not wasting gas by going to this recycling center). I’m in a new town now, and the closest public recycling center is near nothing that I would drive to, so I am basically using energy (gas) in order to save energy. I am estimating, given my car’s gas mileage and the distance to the recycling center, I use about 0th 2 gallons of gasoline per trip. So, I want to know if I save energy by recycling more waste than I by driving. References appreciated. I know it takes less energy to make a plastic bottle from recycled materials than from raw materials, but I do not know how much less. According to this website (http://www drf umd edu/Recycling/documents/3-Stillnotconvinced pdf….): “A report on the production of plastic grocery carrier bags made from recycled rather than virgin polythene Concluded that the use of recycled plastic resulted in the following: reduction of energy consumption by 67% “So, as far as I know, making bottles from recycled plastic saves energy. I do not know if that site is reliable but, so far, no one has cited any sources.
You don’t save any energy, just trees. They provide you with oxygyn.
You know do you? First off plastic bottles are recycled into things like plastic picnic tables which hardly anybody buys. New plastic bottles are all made from raw materials. So of course you don’t know how much less.
actually, its pretty easy and costs almost nothing (in terms of money AND energy) to create a plastic bottle.
im not sure if when they recycle they melt-down the plastics or reform it in some way, or if they just wash it and boom, done, but unless it is number two, recycling is actually a more energy consuming process. the process wasn’t intended to save energy, just to save tons upon tons of plastic from wasting away in a landfill for the next millenium
Lets say gas is 3.00 and bottle is .05 cents.
You say you use .2 a gallon of gas for the trip.
Thats .60 cents for the trip.
You get back .05 cents, spending .55 cents total.
So you would need to recycle 12 bottles at one time to make energy use even out, but recycle more then 12 bottles at one time and you will be saving energy. If you recycle less then 12 bottles at one time, your using more energy then saving. So save up the bottles and recycle more at a time to save energy. Hope I helped.