One question that often gets asked is how does recycling paper help landfills? This is an important question to address. As with any form of recycling, knowing the reasons why it is important and appreciating the benefits makes it easier to put recycling into practice.

Historically waste has been buried in landfill sites. Many important archaeological finds today are from what is basically an ancient landfill location. The nature of waste has changed, however, with many chemicals and non or slow decomposing items filling up landfill sites. The volume of waste that is produced today has also escalated, meaning that alternatives to landfill must be sought.

Waste Paper in Landfills When asking how recycling paper helps landfills, it is useful to get a perspective of the volume of waste paper produced. In the 21 years ending 1991, the consumption of paper in the U.S. doubled. As consumption increased, so did the volume of waste paper.

Around one-third of all household waste is paper. It is reported that a staggering 14 percent of landfill space is taken up by newspaper alone. Keeping paper out of landfill sites is the most important reason why paper is recycled. Reducing the amount of paper going into landfills therefore slows down the pace that landfill sites are filling.

Another benefit of keeping paper out of landfills is that decomposing paper releases methane gas, which is a potent greenhouse gas (20 times more potent than carbon dioxide). It is becoming increasingly more widely accepted that reducing greenhouse gases will help to slow down global warming. Therefore recycling paper has a wider global environmental benefit.

Other Benefits of Recycling Paper As with many other forms of recycling, the energy used in recycling materials is much less than that used in working with virgin materials. The total amount of energy used to recycle paper can be anywhere between 28 percent and 70 percent less, which represents significant environmental benefits.

Recycled paper does not need re-bleaching, meaning that fewer harmful chemicals are released into the environment. On the occasions where bleaching is required, oxygen rather than chlorine is usually used. This reduces the amount of dioxins which are produced as a by-product of the chlorine bleaching processes.

Waste Paper in Landfills When asking how does recycling paper help landfills, it is useful to get a perspective of the volume of waste paper produced. In the 21 years ending 1991, the consumption of paper in the U.S. doubled. As consumption increased, so did the volume of waste paper.

Around one-third of all household waste is paper. It is reported that a staggering 14 percent of landfill space is taken up by newspaper alone. Keeping paper out of landfill sites is the most important reason why paper is recycled. Reducing the amount of paper going into landfills therefore slows down the pace that landfill sites are filling.

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