Squeaky Clean Kicks Recycles and so Should You!

Squeaky Clean Kicks is a company that has sustainability in mind. That being said, SCK (short for Squeaky Clean Kicks) wants to share with you what is on their minds. We think it is so important to minimize waste and do whatever we can to keep this earth clean as possible.

Here is where SCK would like to give you five strong reasons to participate in a recycling program:

#1. Recycling Saves Natural Resources

Our finite reserves of natural resources are being depleted rapidly, particularly with the increasing use of disposable products and packaging. Pennsylvanians recycled 5 million tons in 2005. This rate of use and disposal takes a particularly heavy toll on irreplaceable natural resources from our forests and mines.

Reprocessing used materials to make new products and packaging reduces the consumption of natural resources. By recycling over 1.2 million tons of steel in 2005, Pennsylvanians saved 1.4 million tons of iron ore, 829,786 tons of coal, and 71,124 tons of limestone. Through recycling newsprint, office paper and mixed paper, we saved the equivalent of 78 million tree seedlings grown for 10 years. Recycling often produces better products than those made of virgin materials; for instance, the tin in "tin" cans is more refined (thus more valuable) after being processed for recycling.

Source reduction, preventing waste before it is generated, can further reduce the need for disposal and save more resources.

#2. Recycling Saves Energy

Recycling paper cuts energy usage in half. Every pound of steel recycled saves 5,450 BTUs of energy, enough to light a 15-watt compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb for over 100 hours. Recycling a ton of glass saves the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel oil. Recycling used aluminum cans requires only about five percent of the energy needed to produce aluminum from bauxite. Recycling just one can saves enough electricity to light a 25 CFL bulb for 14 hours.

Additional energy savings associated with recycling accrue in the manufacturing process itself, since the materials have already undergone processing. Recycling in Pennsylvania in 2005 saved over 98 trillion BTUs of energy, enough to power 941,000 houses.

#3. Recycling Saves Our Environment

In addition to greenhouse gases, recycling can reduce a range of pollutants from entering the air and water. By decreasing the need to extract and process new raw materials from the earth, recycling can eliminate the pollution associated with the initial stages of a product's development: material extraction, refining and processing. These activities pollute the air, land and water with toxic materials, such as ammonia, carbon monoxide, methane, and sulfur dioxides. Further reductions are achieved as a result of energy saving, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants. In addition to the greenhouse gas reductions mentioned previously, additional reductions of air emissions due to recycling total 587,000 tons. Reduced water emissions total nearly 9,000 tons.

#4. Recycling Adds Value to Pennsylvania's Economy

Collection and processing,the first step in the recycling process, involves sorting and aggregating recyclable materials. It includes municipal and private collectors, material recovery and composting facilities, and recyclable material wholesalers. These activities employ over 10,000 people in Pennsylvania, with a payroll of $327 million and annual sales of $5.9 billion.

Recycling manufacturing involves the actual conversion of recyclables into products. The primary recycling manufacturers in Pennsylvania in order of magnitude are steel mills, plastic converters, paper and paperboard mills, and nonferrous metal manufacturers. Recycling manufacturing employs over 34,000 people with a payroll of almost $1.7 billion and annual sales of over $14.0 billion.

Reuse and remanufacturing focuses on the refurbishing and repair of products to be reused in their original form. The largest activities are retail sales of used merchandise and reuse of used motor vehicle parts. The amount of value that can be added via this process is limited because of competition from new products. Nevertheless, reuse and manufacturing contributes over 8,100 jobs, a payroll of $158 million and sales of over a half billion dollars.

#5. Recycling is Good Business

Most people know that recycling plays an important role in managing the garbage generated in homes and businesses, and that it reduces the need for landfills and incinerators.

But recycling is far more than a local waste management strategy; it is also an important strategy for reducing the environmental impacts of industrial production. Supplying industry with recycled materials, rather than virgin resources extracted from forests and mines, is environmentally preferable because it saves energy, reduces emissions of greenhouse gases and other dangerous air and water pollutants, and because it conserves scarce natural resources. In 2004, Pennsylvania recycling programs supplies industry with over 4.7 million tons of scrap commodities like metals, paper, glass, plastics, wood, organics, and other materials.

Recycling is a growth industry with many kinds of business opportunities, from collection and processing to manufacturing to inventing new technologies. New businesses in Pennsylvania will create jobs for more Pennsylvanians and improve our economy.

For those reasons previously listed, Squeaky Clean Kicks takes part in a recycling program and instills this kind of value into our employees who, we hope, will spread those values to their community and get this movement into motion.

Share how you are becoming more sustainable using #sustainability or #KeepItClean or #Recycle or just send us a shout out at #SqueakyCleanKicks

**All of the information stated above was provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protaction. For more information or if you have any questions, please refer to the PDEP webpage: https://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/wm/recycle/recycle.htm

#sustainability #SqueakyCleanKicks #KeepItClean #Recycle