Tag Archives: Energy Conservation

The Benefits of Recycling as an Energy Conservation Measure

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Recycling is an effective energy conservation measure that translates into avoided emissions alongside other environmental and economic benefits. It saves energy by decreasing or eliminating energy use during extraction, transportation, and processing of raw materials into finished products.

How Recycling Saves Energy

Manufacturing is a labor, waste, and energy-intensive process that is never-ending due to the increasing demand for consumer products. Manufacturing products from scratch requires raw materials to be extracted, transported, and refined. However, when recycling, you are using already refined materials that need less energy to be transformed into usable products.

Recycling also saves time, money, natural resources, conserves the environment, and shrinks landfills. Hence, the more we recycle, the more we save and gain. Because of these benefits, it is essential to sign up for a residential recycling collection service to have your recyclable trash going to the right place.

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The amount of energy saved through recycling generally depends on the material being reprocessed. Let’s take a look at the energy savings of four of the most commonly recycled materials.

1. Aluminum

Aluminum manufacturing requires huge amounts of heat and electricity. Despite constant efforts to reduce energy consumption, manufacturing aluminum still costs three times more than the theoretical minimum energy requirement.

Recycling aluminum cans and scrapes requires 6 percent of the energy needed to manufacture aluminum from bauxite ore. Repurposing aluminum saves the energy that would have been used to extract, transport, crush, and combine bauxite with caustic soda. Additionally, extracting aluminum from bauxite requires the ore to be purified and smelted.

Thus, the aluminum recycling process is fast, efficient, and achieves up to 94 percent energy savings. Even better, you can recycle aluminum infinite times without degrading, increasing energy saving in the long run. Besides, introducing new alloys and improved product design along the product chain results in more energy and environmental savings.

2. Glass

Glassmaking is an energy-intensive process that involves melting sand and other minerals at extremely high temperatures. Reprocessing glass still needs lots of energy to melt the glass and make a new product. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says reprocessing glass results in 30% energy savings. Glass, like aluminum, does not degrade when it is recycled.

Thus, tossing glass in recycling bins will help preserve natural resources, like sand and soda ash, and reduce the energy costs involved with transporting these heavy materials. It also allows glass manufacturers to cut on energy input to their furnaces. The cumulative energy costs decrease by 2 to 3 percent for every 10 percent of broken glass used in the production process.

Moreover, the durability of glass allows for recycling without reprocessing. This means that you can save 100% energy by cleaning and reusing glass around your home and eliminate the need for an energy-intensive manufacturing process.

3. Paper

An average American household throws away 13,000 pieces of paper every year. These translate into almost 1 billion trees worth of paper being thrown away yearly in the U.S. You can recycle all or most of this paper and contribute to 40% energy savings. Recycled paper can be used to make a variety of new paper products.

paper-recycling

However, this is limited by its appearance, which is not as white or smooth as new paper. Fortunately, biodegradable inks and erasable paper promise improved paper recycling efficiency. You could also reduce your paper usage or reuse paper around your home whenever possible to conserve energy and save trees.

4. Plastic

Many plastic products are single-use commodities that are only in use for a few minutes. However, these require hundreds of years to biodegrade. Sadly, approximately 4 percent of America’s total energy consumption goes to producing plastic products.

Recycling plastic requires only about 10% of the energy needed to manufacture one pound of plastic from virgin sources. The recovery process has short-term energy-saving benefits because plastics degrade every time they are recycled.

plastic waste

However, many manufactures have ways of repurposing low-grade plastics to use in less demanding applications, such as carpeting, park benches, auto parts, and insulation.

Other Materials to Recycle Around Your Home

You can recycle many other materials around your home, and you can determine their energy savings using the iWARM tool created by the EPA. Some of these materials include

You can also contribute to energy conservation by purchasing recycled household products. Some of the most common include

  • Egg cartons
  • Newspapers
  • Comic books
  • Trash bags
  • Paper towels
  • Glass containers
  • Car bumpers

Bottom Line

Reduce, reuse, recycle is a lifestyle that leads us to a greener planet. Following these guidelines for a greener planet will also save you some coins because most recycled products cost significantly less than products produced using virgin material. Keep in mind that 75 percent of all waste can be recycled, and doing this will save the planet loads of energy.

Top Ways to Save Energy at School

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The issue of saving energy amid the exponential advancement of the technology-dependent studying process is one of the critical challenges school systems face today. Modern students are avidly embracing energy-powered tools in class, from learning the techniques of successful coursework writing service on popular websites like EssayShark, to sharing their studying notes with peers via file storage services like Google Drive.

On that account, the matter of energy efficiency at schools has taken on unprecedented urgency, weighing heavily on school boards to be absorbed in how to minimize electricity consumption. This has led school authorities to employ a great variety of solutions aimed at mitigating the destructive impact of environmental pollution. Following the universal eco-inspired trend of reducing the use of electricity, we handpicked the most productive ways of saving energy for you to employ at your school!

Utilize LED Lighting

Replacing incandescent light bulbs with more innovative and energy-efficient alternatives like LED or CBL lamps is the perfect solution to start saving energy at your school. Powered by light emitting diodes, which is what this acronym stands for, LED lamps consume a lot less energy than traditional fluorescent lighting and have a much longer lifespan. This makes this type of lighting highly efficient for school. While incandescent light produces too much heat, LED light bulbs preserve it, preventing you from splurging money on cooling.

Another way to promote energy savings in schools is to use LED screens as they consume less energy and help in power consumption.

Give Preference to Natural Light

Not only will sunlight cut the electricity costs your school pays, but it will also create a favorable learning environment for students as opposed to light bulbs. Following several comprehensive studies, sunlight allows people to stay focused on their tasks longer and is thus one of the key factors in promoting a healthy studying process. In order to make the best of natural light, you can equip your classrooms appropriately, such as using suitable blinds or curtains.

Consider Advantageous Cooling Options

Air conditioning provides total salvation for people when it’s boiling hot outside. And its role gets especially critical when it comes to a score of students sharing a stuffy home room during scorching weather. But, no matter how beneficial the effect produced by an air conditioner might be, this system consumes way too much electricity. Adopting effective cooling solutions is the key to saving energy and keeping it cool in your educational institution.

college-green

Use Sensors to Regulate Lighting

For safety reasons, many schools keep the lights on in the premises for the entire day. This is by far the least reasonable option to adhere to if you want to minimize electricity consumption. As an efficient alternative of providing your students with constant lighting, you can contemplate using motion sensors.

These devices can make the lights go on only if there’s someone in the room and off once the room is empty. Motion sensors are designed to detect motion and can thus automatically trigger lighting if there’s a need, instead of keeping the lighting unrestrained for the whole day.

Keep the Doors Closed

As another effective trick for reducing thermal loss in your classroom, keeping the doors closed will also maintain the coolness of the room. Thus, this practice can save you some good cash you would be forced to spend on a high-end air conditioning system.

Modernize the Kitchen

The school kitchen is veritably the hub of its electric appliances. Here you have ovens, a microwave, fridges, freezers, and the works. All these devices use a great deal of electricity and, based on the funding schools get from the government, most of them are probably old, which doubles their energy inefficiency. For this reason, replacing your kitchen appliances with newer and more cost-effective models will resolve some of the school’s energy consumption issues.

Drawing the Line

By following today’s all-embracing path toward saving energy, school authorities demonstrate their regard for environmental problems as well as their money management acumen. The modern technology-driven world offers us a variety of options to create a more energy-effective environment, improving the quality of our lives. The essentials we have provided in this article will help make your school routine less costly and more up-to-date.