Contents
Key Stage 3
Meaning
Recycling is taking materials that have been used and making them into new products.
About Recycling
- Recycling allows us to use less materials from the Earth.
- Recycling makes sure limited materials do not run out.
- Recycling often uses less energy to make products than extracting materials from the Earth.
Key Stage 4
Meaning
To recycle is to process waste materials so they can be used again.
About Recycling
Recycling involves several stages:
- Collecting and transporting the used products with recyclable materials.
- Separating a product into its separate materials.
- Cleaning the material to remove contaminants.
- Reforming the material, usually by melting and molding into a block of the material.
- Transporting the material to factories where it can be used to manufacture a new product.
- Each stage of recycling carries an energy cost. Different materials require different amounts of energy to recycle.
The decision to recycle a material is based on several considerations:
- Can it be collected and transported easily?
- Can the product be easily separated into its materials?
- Can the material be recycled without significant impurities?
- Will the properties of the recycled material be good enough for use in another product?
- Is it cheaper to extract the raw material than to recycle old materials?
- Will it take more energy to recycle than to extract new raw materials?