The ecology of recycling

While not on the front line of climate solutions, recycling of waste materials, wastewater, and wasted energy is a locally available and highly desirable means of reducing greenhouse gases. One potent greenhouse gas, the methane emitted from landfills and wastewater, accounts for about 90 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from the entire waste sector. That amount is 18 per cent of human-caused methane emissions globally and about three per cent of total greenhouse gases, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Diverting waste bound for landfills and putting it to good use, then, is an obvious and proven means for conserving land and resources, as we have known for a long time; we can now add the knowledge from numerous studies that these practices also bolster climate protection.