Recycling

Recycling refers to the process of collecting used, reused, or unused materials (e.g. paper, plastic, glass, aluminum cans, etc.) and breaking them down into their raw materials which are then remade into new products.

The goal of recycling is to reduce pollution and raw material consumption by transforming these used materials into new products instead of making products from scratch. Recycling prevents useful materials from ending up in landfills or incinerators. The process starts by segregating and sorting recyclable waste, then the materials undergo a strict process where they are cleaned, sorted further, shredded, melted, or otherwise processed into raw materials which are then used to manufacture brand new products.

The key difference with upcycling is that upcycling repurposes discarded items directly into something new and often higher quality (e.g. turn a water bottle into a lamp), while recycling breaks down used materials into raw materials to make new products (e.g. turn thrown away aluminum cans into new aluminum cans). Both help reduce waste and make use of existing materials. Recycling is usually more energy intensive, however.