Waste reduction, reuse and recycling are valuable components of the solid waste management system in the United States. They are slowly becoming better understood and more and more people are participating in programs today. Recycling and waste reduction are easy, hands-on activities that help protect our environment and activities that provide a number of benefits:
Reducing waste, reusing and recycling conserve landfill space
The best approach to managing waste is called "source reduction" - not creating it in the first place. This means reducing the amount of trash you discard, and reusing containers and products instead of throwing them away.
While the overall number of landfills across the nation is decreasing, the existing ones are getting bigger to accommodate the growing waste generated by Americans. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States leads the industrialized world in municipal solid waste generation: each person currently generates an average of 4.62 pounds of waste per day.
Canada and the Netherlands come in second and third, with 3.75 and 3 pounds per person per day, respectively. Germany and Sweden generate the least amount of waste per capita for industrialized nations, with just under 2 pounds per person per day.
The EPA has stated that recycling is one of the best environmental success stories of the late 20th century. Recycling, which includes composting, diverted nearly 70 million tons of material away from landfills and incinerators in 2000, up from 34 million tons in 1990 - doubling in just 10 years.
Recycling has the potential to save money
Recycling does cost money, but so does waste disposal. Waste disposal costs include the construction of waste transfer stations and incinerators, landfill fees, groundwater monitoring, personnel and other operating costs, fleet maintenance, and other expenses. 
Recycling can reduce some of these costs, and communities can even make money by selling certain recyclable materials. While markets for recovered materials fluctuate depending on a variety of economic conditions, buying products made from recycled materials helps create a steady market incentive for manufacturers.
Waste reduction and recycling save natural resources
By reusing materials and re-manufacturing them into new products we are reducing the amount of virgin natural resources that we need to use. For example, for every ton of recycled paper that we use we can save 17 trees.
Recycling also reduces waste from mining and excavation. For example, one ton of glass produced from raw materials creates 384 pounds of mining waste. For every ton of glass that is recycled, 1,330 pounds of sand, 433 pounds of soda ash, 433 pounds of limestone, and 151 pounds of feldspar are conserved.
Recycling saves energy
Energy savings can be seen when most materials are recycled. One example of valuable energy savings is the recycling of aluminum cans. It takes 95 percent less energy to recycle an aluminum can than it does to make a new can from bauxite ore.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 2000, recycling resulted in an annual energy savings of at least 660 trillion BTUs, which equals the amount of energy used in 6 million households annually. In 2005, recycling is conservatively projected to save 900 trillion BTUs, equal to the annual energy use of 9 million households.
Recycling reduces pollution and impacts global warming
The manufacture, distribution, and use of products - as well as management of the resulting waste - all result in greenhouse gas emissions which trap heat in the upper atmosphere. Increased concentrations of these gases can contribute to global climate change.
By reusing goods and purchasing recycled products, less energy is needed to extract, transport and process raw materials. When energy demand decreases, fewer fossil fuels are burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in wood in a process called "carbon sequestration." Waste prevention and recycling paper products allows more trees to remain standing in the forest, where they can continue to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help regulate our climate.
Recycling creates jobs
In a recent study, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a Washington based non-profit, estimated that nine jobs are created for every 15,000 tons of waste that is recycled while only one job is created for every 15,000 tons of waste that is landfilled or incinerated.
The U.S. EPA has launched a Jobs Through Recycling initiative to help inform communities about the economic and business development benefits obtained as a result of recycling programs and industries.
According to their U.S. Recycling Economic Information Study, more than 56,000 recycling and reuse establishments in the United States employ approximately 1.1 million people, generate an annual payroll of $37 billion, and gross $236 billion in annual revenues. According to the report, the number of workers in the recycling industry is comparable to the automobile and truck manufacturing industry and is significantly larger than mining and waste management and disposal industries. In addition, wages for workers in the recycling industry are notably higher than the national average for all industries.