Recycling and Reuse of Materials

Recycling or reuse is a longstanding activity of mankind. Arguments in favor thereof are in part economic. They also may refer to resource conservation, energy conservation and limitation of pollution, though one should also be aware of possible negative environmental side-effects of recycling. In current practice resources used by economies are largely converted into wastes. Recycling of materials accounts for a limited fraction of resource inputs. For this purpose a wide variety of technologies is employed. Near term improvement is possible by making the socioeconomic environment more conducive to reuse and by design for recycling of products and processes. Choosing resources in relation to the retrievability of products, resource cascading, and fitting non-product outputs of the economy to useful inputs, are important for a steady state economy.