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Closing the Loop
Returning your beverage containers, newspapers and other recyclable products is the first step in the recycling process. You can take the next step by shopping for products made with recycled materials. Recycled products have the same high quality as goods made from virgin materials, sometimes even higher. When you buy recycled, you "close the loop" completing the recycling process.
Buying products that contain recycled materials helps conserve natural resources, protects the environment, and prolongs limited landfill life. Manufacturing products using recycled materials often has less of an effect on the environment than producing their virgin equivalents. In some cases, fewer toxic materials are used to make recycled products, creating less toxic waste than is created during the virgin material manufacturing cycle. Additionally, recycled aluminum provides a less expensive source of material for aluminum can production than using virgin materials.
Buying products made with recycled materials also helps create markets for the recyclables that you put out on the curb and creates jobs in the process. This is essential if California is to meet its goal of diverting 50 percent of our waste from landfills by the year 2000 and beyond.
How to buy recycled:
Look for labels indicating that the item contains recycled content, preferably post-consumer. (Post consumer means any material that the public has already used and recycled). - Choose products made with post consumer material. If they are not carried in your local stores, ask your store manager to begin stocking products made with recycled materials.
- Shop by mail for items with recycled content if you can’t find these products locally.
- Write to manufacturers and ask that they begin producing products with recycled content.
- Encourage others in your office, school, business, and community to buy recycled products.
- Call 1-800-RECYCLE and ask for the Department of Conservation’s "Market Watch Guide"