Purchasing products with recycled content increase the demand for such items, creating a market for the materials you recycle. In time, this will also lower prices for recycled content products.

Recycling is frequently the least expensive waste management alternative for cities and towns. Recycling also creates more jobs than landfills or incinerators. For example,incinerating 10,000 tons of waste creates 1 job, while landfilling the same amount creates 6 jobs. Recycling the same 10,000 tons of waste creates 36 jobs.

Producing items with recycled materials rather than new/raw materials often creates less air and water pollution. For example, recycling all of the waste newsprint, cardboard, glass, and metal from a single home reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 850 pounds a year.

It often takes less energy to make a product from recycled materials than from raw materials, reducing acid rain, global warming and air pollution.

Producing products from recycled materials decreases the demand for natural resources. This preserves resources for future generations, and decreases damage to wilderness areas.

When the materials you recycle go into new products, they don't go into landfills or incinerators, and landfill space is conserved. In this decade, Americans will throw away over 1 million tons of aluminum cans and foil, 11 million tons of glass bottles and jars, 4 1/2 half million tons of office paper, and 10 million tons of newspaper. Almost all of this material could be recycled into new products