Recycling good for the environment

Recycling is still an important part of the way we handle trash in St. Charles Parish. Residents still get the opportunity to rid themselves of items they no longer need along with helping to keep the enviroment clean by bringing their recyclables to drop off points. Curbside recycling ended with Hurricane Katrina but may be resumed in the future.

The purpose of recycling programs is to provide households an opportunity to properly dispose of recyclable materials such as solvents, poisons, used oil and corrosives which require special handling to prevent safety and environmental impact. They also make available for reuse of other materials that otherwise would use up space in our trash dumps.

At present, residents may drop off their recyclables at drop off points on certain days of the week (see article on page 2A of this issue). Approximately 16,120 pounds of material was dropped off at these points in March. . At the end of the day, tons of potentially harmful materials had been prepared for recycling.

The recycling process involves three stages. In the first stage the old products are collected and processed, where they are sorted, cleaned and made ready for recycling or manufacturing new products. The second stage involves the manufacturing of new products from the raw material obtained by the processing of the old products. Finally, the process ends with the purchasing of recycled goods by the consumers.
 Recycling saves space for landfills. Considering the pace with which landfills are getting filled up, we could soon run short of them unless we start following recycling at our own homes and spread the word to others.

In addition to greenhouse gases, recycling can reduce a range of pollutants from entering the air and water. By decreasing the need to extract and process new raw materials from the earth, recycling can eliminate the pollution associated with the initial stages of a product's development: material extraction, refining and processing.