Recycling helps the Earth by not producing more waste onto our planet.

We are throwing away far too much rubbish. Our landfills are filling up. Many towns and cities have trouble finding new holes to dump rubbish in. All sorts of paper and cardboard can be recycled and turned into fresh paper and card. This uses far less energy than making new paper from trees. All glass bottles and steel and aluminum cans can be recycled as well as all other metals, again saving energy. When we save energy we don't emit as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, because usually we make electricity by burning fossil fuels like coal. All plastics can be recycled, again saving energy. In some places only certain kinds of plastics are accepted, but all plastics can be recycled, even styrofoam (polystyrene). We throw away food scraps and other organic matter like leaves, cotton, animal manure etc. These can all be composted to become garden fertilizer. Some will also generate methane gas which is good if we collect it and use it for heating, cooking or generating electricity. But methane gas is bad if we just let it seep out of landfills and into the atmosphere where it becomes a dangerous greenhouse gas, twenty-one times more deadly than carbon dioxide. And greenhouse gases are causing global warming.