one of them . By reusing existing materials you are essentially removing the process involved in sourcing the `` virgin materials '' in the first place . Take soda cans , made from aluminum . According to Friends of the Earth , creating a ton of these from scratch takes five times the amount of energy as it would to produce a ton of recycled cans . According to the Bureau of International Recycling -LRB- BIR -RRB- , the companies that manufacture recycled aluminum are using 95 percent less energy than if they were using `` virgin materials . '' -LRB- For plastics the energy savings are almost as high -- 80 percent , BIR says , while making paper from recycled paper -LRB- as opposed to wood -RRB- can save 64 percent of energy . -RRB- Looking at it another way , according to the National Recycling Coalition , the amount of energy saved in one year by Americans recycling their soda cans , plastic containers , newspapers and packaging represented the energy equivalent of : Not surprisingly , recycling also impacts pollution levels . BIR says producing paper from recycled paper as opposed to wood can slash air
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- As a concept , recycling has lived and died many times throughout its 4,000-year old history . But it always re-emerges as an idea when humans need it most , such as during the Great Depression , and later during World War II , when American companies recycled or reused around 25 percent of the waste stream . A sign in Cheshire , England signalling a recycling drop-off area . Today , the global recycling industry generates $ 160 billion a year , processing more than 500 million tons of materials . The industry is becoming one of the world 's biggest employers . While the official amount of people employed by the industry is 1.5 million worldwide , the real figure -- when you factor in illegal recycling operations in the developing world -- is likely to be much , much higher . The United Nations believes , for example , that as many as 10 million people in China alone are now in the recycling business . What 's not to like about recycling ? There are some fairly persuasive arguments for recycling , and for using recycled goods . Energy savings is just