Glass is very easy to recycle; waste bottles and jars can be melted down and used again and again.
You simply toss old glass into the furnace with the ingredients you're using to make brand-new glass.
Most of the metal we throw away at home comes from food and drink cans and aerosols.
Typically food cans are made from steel, which can be melted down and turned into new food cans.
Drinks cans are generally thinner and lighter and made from aluminum, which can also be recycled very easily.
Mining aluminum is a very energy-intensive and environmentally harmful process.
That's why waste aluminum cans have a relatively high value and why recycling them is such a good thing to do.
Of all the different materials we toss in the trash, plastics cause by far the biggest problem. They last a long time in the environment without breaking down—sometimes as much as 500 years. They're very light and they float, so plastic litter drifts across the oceans and washes up on our beaches, killing wildlife and scarring the shoreline. The only trouble is, plastics are relatively hard to recycle. There are many different kinds of plastic and they all have to be recycled in a different way. There's so much plastic about that waste plastic material doesn't have much value, so it's not always economic to collect. Plastic containers also tend to be large and, unless people squash them, quickly fill up recycling bins.
All told, plastics are a bit of an environmental nightmare—but that's all the more reason we should make an effort to recycle them! Different plastics can be recycled in different ways. Plastic drinks bottles are usually made from a type of clear plastic called PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and can be turned into such things as textile insulation (for thermal jackets and sleeping bags). Milk bottles tend to be made from a thicker, opaque plastic called HDPE (high-density polyethylene) and can be recycled into more durable products like flower pots and plastic pipes.
Another solution to the problem could be to use bioplastics, which claim to be more environmentally friendly.