Peak oil, energy, and society/Caleb's page

The idea of recycling has been around as long humans have existed, from the Native Americans using ever part of the buffalo to 19th century farmers using compost to fertilize their fields. Now during the "green revolution" a new kind of recycling has emerged. An "industrial recycling", this involves taking a less used natural resource and processing it to be use used from flooring to t-shirts. Another form of "industrial recycling" is taking used processed materials and re-processing them to be used again. Some example of "industrial recycling" are; cork floor,bamboo floors, resin tiling, sunflower shelving, processed plastic t-shirts,etc. The benefits of the products range, for some it's using materials that otherwise would be in land fills, or using a more resilient natural resource such as using bamboo flooring as opposed to wood flooring. The downside range just as widely, for some it's using huge amounts of energy on recycling materials as opposed to just reducing use, and for others it the use of toxic chemicals that is needed to successfully recycle it. Over all recycled materials have there pros and cons but when ever possible reducing use instead of finding some strange recycled material has only pros.