If you recycle does it save fossil fuel?

Answer 1

It does to an extent but not to the extent that most (green thinking) people think it does.
For instance:

plastic can be recycled but only 12% of recycled plastic can be added to virgin material. Any more and it degrades the quality of the finished product. What's more many plastic items cannot be made from recycled plastic at all such as water pipes for drinking, medical plastic et.c. and a lot of plastics & vinyls cannot be recycled at all.

Metals on the other hand are highly recyclable, but again it causes problems. 30% of steel can be lost to slag caused by impurities injected by recycled metal. That's 30% more energy needed to boil the metal. Aluminium is probably the best material to recycle as it is more pure and easier to recycle.

Car's are not really a good product to recycle as they are made of many different materials which take fuel to disassemble in preparation for recycling. Also there is a case which says that scrapping cars for air emissions earlier in their life is counter productive as it takes more energy and create more pollutants to recycle the vehicle than to continue using the old car for a few more years.

Waste separation for recycling, as done in Germany by house holders can promote increased disease problems as the requirement is to store rotting food which is usually done inside the owners kitchen.

In conclusion, recycling is a good idea in theory but we are not at a stage yet where we gain a huge benefit. However it is a step in the right direction.

Answer 2

Yes, recycling can help save fossil fuels. When we recycle materials like paper, glass, plastic, and metal, it reduces the need for new raw materials to be extracted and manufactured. This, in turn, reduces the energy required to produce new products from scratch, saving fossil fuels that would have been used in the manufacturing process.