Every bottle you recycle makes a real difference for the planet, whether it’s made of plastic, glass, or a less commonly recycled material such as metal. These positive impacts include saving energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and minimizing how much trash ends up in our landfills and oceans. Let’s dive a bit deeper to understand exactly why it’s worth recycling bottles.
How Bottle Recycling Helps the Earth
Energy Saved from Every Bottle
Recycling even one bottle saves a measurable amount of energy. But how much, exactly, does it save to recycle a single bottle?
The statistics on energy saved per individual bottle vary slightly between plastic and glass bottle recycling, since they’re made of dissimilar materials and their recycling processes are different, but the energy savings for both are significant:
- Glass bottles: Recycling a single glass bottle saves enough energy to power a 100-watt lightbulb for four hours, a computer for 30 minutes, or a TV for 20 minutes. It also causes 20 percent less air pollution and 50 percent less water pollution than making a new glass bottle from raw materials.
- Plastic bottles: Recycling one plastic bottle saves the energy required to power a 60-watt bulb for six hours.
Lower Greenhouse Emissions with Recycling
Recycling just ten plastic bottles saves as much energy as is needed to power a laptop for over 25 hours.
Recycling one ton of plastic bottles saves as much energy as is needed to power a two-person household for a full year. It also saves the equivalent of 3.8 barrels of oil.
Taking a bird’s eye view of how recycling impacts greenhouse gas emissions: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, recycling helped save the equivalent of almost 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the year 2018 (which was the most recent year that this data was collected).
If there are any other recyclable waste products that you’re curious about, we recommend that you check out the EPA’s individual Waste Reduction Model (iWARM) to look up specific items, such as glass and plastic bottles, as well as magazines, aluminum cans, and plastic grocery bags. The tool lets you see how much energy is saved in terms of powering various household appliances. For instance, it tells us that recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a hair dryer for roughly four minutes, while the energy saved by recycling a plastic bottle can power an air conditioner for about five minutes.
Cut Landfill Waste and Ocean Trash
Every single month, Americans alone throw away enough glass bottles and jars to fill an entire skyscraper such as the Empire State Building. We also use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, most of which end up getting thrown away rather than recycled.
Bottle recycling can significantly reduce the amount of reusable materials that we throw away, reducing our production of landfill waste and ocean trash. This is valuable simply because every bottle we recycle is one less bottle that will either end up in a landfill or pollute our land and oceans (leading to an environmental crisis of marine microplastics, among other serious problems).
The Best Way to Recycle Your Bottles: Bottle Drop Recycling
How Bottle Drop Recycling Works
Bottle drop recycling involves placing your used bottles and cans into large plastic bags and dropping them off at a particular location. In contrast to municipal curbside recycling, which is typically under the purview of local governments, private companies often manage and oversee bottle drop recycling.
In the case of CLYNK, bottle redemption is as simple as putting bottles/cans into their green recyclable bags, tagging the bags with your personal CLYNK bag tags, and bringing them to a CLYNK drop-off location (click here to search for the drop-off locations nearest you). Once you’ve arrived, all that’s left to do is scan your bags and drop them off.
As an added bonus, the CLYNK app lets you track the bottles/cans you’ve recycled so far, so you can get an idea of how many containers you’ve prevented from ending up as litter or taking up space in landfills.
Sign Up for CLYNK to Get Started
When searching for a hassle-free way to recycle containers that’s good for the planet and your wallet, the CLYNK sign-up process is fairly straightforward.
Just sign up online and we’ll send you a welcome kit with everything you need: 10 free recycling bags, personalized bag tags, and your personal CLYNK card. If you’d rather skip the wait, head to a CLYNK kiosk near you to sign up, grab your materials, and begin recycling immediately.
Curious how it all works? Our FAQs walk you through each step of the process, from prepping your bags to tracking your earnings. With CLYNK, everyday recycling can be a simple and rewarding routine.