By: Dhvanil, Victoria and Perla

During the Great Depression reusing products was popular because it helped save money. Recycling got popular when the first Earth Day occurred. Now, the concept of recycling is more mainstream, which saves more energy and the environment.

Throughout the Depression recycling was useful because people would conserve money.  People could not afford to buy new products, so they reused the materials that they already had. In the 1940s , recycling scrap metal and paper helped the war effort.

Later, in the '70s, people began to recycle because recycling operations grew. The first national Earth day was in 1970; it introduced the first recycling program.

On January 27, 1971 the Aluminum Association in New York  started plans for recycling metal, paper, glass, sand, and other waste. Recycling spread to different parts to the U.S.  On June 24, 1971 Pittsburgh  (AP) ( 31 ) started a program for recycling cans. Then it increased to 13 other states.

This is paper being recycled. Photo by Gargoyle Junior Reporters (click to enlarge).

These are recycling cans in a recycling bin. Photo by Gargoyle Junior Reporters (click to enlarge).

Americans recycle 82 million tons of trash trash each year.  But that is only 32.5% of what we throw out. If you recycle more, then that means less raw material is going to be used.

For example if you recycle paper instead of throwing it out, you save energy. So it is important to recycle. Without recycling Earth would be a wasteland, plus if we cut down too many trees we will not have good oxygen. So go green and recycle.

If you recycle 1 ton of paper, you have just saved 17 trees! Recycling aluminum cans uses 95% less energyless energy than making them with raw materials, which is a lot. Creating glass bottles and containers using recycled materials uses 50% less energy than other unused materials. According to the University of Maryland, each year more than 900,000,000 trees are cut down to provide raw materials for paper and newspapers etc. If that would be recycled, so many trees will not need to be cut down.