About Recycling
The recycling of metals has been in common usage since the Bronze Age, when early man found that it was much easier to re-melt metal and cast it into new products, than to smelt new metal.
Turbal-Cain, a direct descendent of Adam who lived about 3000BC is described in Genesis 4:22 as "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." It is highly probable that he re-melted the spills and spatters that would accompany such an operation.
There are numerous other references to recycling in the bible such as the admonition in Joel 3:10, which suggests that you "beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears", and the reverse in Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3.
From these early beginnings, a very sophisticated recycling industry has developed. The cost of recycling metal is far less than the cost of producing new metal, thus the incentive to recycle. In the past few decades with the intense interest in the environment, as well as the requirement for energy conservation, recycling has really come into vogue.
The Benefits of Recycling*:
- Preventing emissions of air and water pollutants
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- Saving energy
- Supplying valuable materials to the industry
- Creating jobs
- Stimulating the development of greener technologies
- Conserving resources for our children's future
*Source: www.epa.gov
For additional general recycling information, go to www.isri.org
