Seattle economist Jeffrey Morris estimated that manufacturing one ton of office and computer paper with recycled paper stock can save nearly 3, kilowatt hours over the same ton of paper made with virgin wood products.
A ton of soda cans made with recycled aluminum saves an amazing 21, kilowatt hours by reducing the virgin bauxite bozite ore that would have to be mined, shipped, and refined. The San Diego County Office of Education has figured out that recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a watt light bulb for four hours.
The Steel Recycling Institute has found that steel recycling saves enough energy to electrically power the equilvalent of 18 million homes for a year. With all the energy that is saved when we recycle bottles and cans and paper, we should all recycle and buy recycled more often!
A: The amount of lost energy from throwing away recyclable commodities such as aluminum cans and newspapers is equivalent to the annual output of 15 power plants. The energy savings applies to all recycling sectors:. One ton of recycled aluminum saves 14, kilowatt hours Kwh of energy, 40 barrels of oil, One ton of recycled newsprint saves Kwh of energy, 1.
Office Paper. One ton of recycled office paper saves 4, Kwh of energy, 9 barrels of oil, 54 million BTU's of energy, 60 pounds of air pollutants from being released, 7, gallons of water, and 3. One ton of recycled plastic saves 5, Kwh of energy, One ton of recycled steel saves Kwh of energy, 1. One ton of recycled glass saves 42 Kwh of energy, 0.
As you can see, by recycling you are saving energy in addition to conserving resources and reducing pollution!
A: Last year alone, recycling bottles and cans saved enough energy to power up to , homes in California. Energy drinks are all the rage, and in recent years beverages that invigorate consumers have flooded the marketplace. What many people might not realize is that the same bottles and cans that provide them with energy beverages could actually save the kind of energy needed to power their homes and televisions.
How much energy? In , the 12 billion bottles and cans recycled by Californians saved the equivalent of enough energy to power up to , homes, according to CalRecycle calculations.
It takes 95 percent less energy to make an aluminum can from recycled aluminum than from processing bauxite ore, and glass furnaces can run at lower temperatures when using recycled glass, thereby saving energy and extending equipment life. To help Californians find the recycling bin instead of the trash can, CalRecycle has some simple tips for bottle and can recycling:. Hold onto your empty beverage containers until you find a recycling bin. Keep an extra bag or box in your car so that you can collect your beverage containers without having them roll around in your car.
Set up a separate bag or box for recyclable beverage containers only. Later, redeem them for cash or put them in your curbside recycling bin. For more information about this press release and other CRV beverage container recycling related programs, please contact the CalRecycle. Q: What is the connection between source reduction and reduction in green house gas emissions? A: Reducing the amount of paper you use is not just being cost-effective, it is taking concrete steps to reduce climate change.
More so than any other waste management option - including composting, recycling, and landfilling - source reduction helps turn back the clock on climate change.
Source reduction, often called waste prevention, is any changes in the design, manufacture, purchase, or use of materials or products including packaging to reduce their amount or toxicity before they become municipal solid waste.
Source reduction also includes the reuse of products or materials. When a material is source reduced i. In addition, when paper products are source reduced, trees that would otherwise be harvested are left standing and continue to grow, removing additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There is also a widely held conception by students that energy accumulates as one moves up through a food chain and therefore the top predator would have accrued all of the energy from the producers and the other consumers lower down in the food chain.
Students are confused about where plants get their food from and will often believe that it comes from the environment mainly from the soil and water rather than from plants manufacturing it themselves. This is because many students have had gardening experiences that involve watering and adding nutrients fertilizer to the soil. Students are usually aware that plants use carbon dioxide but are often unsure why and are confused about its involvement in the weight increase of a plant and manufacture of food.
Energy is transferred between organisms in food webs from producers to consumers. The energy is used by organisms to carry out complex tasks. The vast majority of energy that exists in food webs originates from the sun and is converted transformed into chemical energy by the process of photosynthesis in plants. The majority of the chemical energy stored in plants is transformed into other forms by an assortment of consumers, such as cows, rabbits, horses, sheep, caterpillars and other insects eating plants.
Some of the stored chemical energy in a producer such as grass is stored as chemical energy in the fat or protein in the first order consumers that eat the grass. This energy is available for higher order consumers. At each stage of a food chain, most of the chemical energy is converted to other forms such as heat, and does not remain within the ecosystem.
A key idea to develop is that energy progresses through the food web or food chain from its source, the sun, undergoing repeated transformations. It is also critical to develop the idea that a food web can be complex and is made up of a number of interrelated food chains.
From these bodies of water, water molecules can evaporate to form water vapor and continue the cycle. Runoff, streams, and rivers can gradually dissolve carbon in rocks and carry it to the ocean. The ocean is a major reservoir for stored carbon. It is just one of four major reservoirs. The other three are the atmosphere, the biosphere, and organic sediments such as fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels, including petroleum and coal, form from the remains of dead organisms. All of these reservoirs of carbon are interconnected by pathways of exchange in the carbon cycle, which is shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: This drawing of the carbon cycle shows the amounts of carbon stored in and exchanged between carbon reservoirs on land and in water. Another 70 million GtC of carbon may be stored in sedimentary rock.
If this is true, it would make sedimentary rock the greatest reservoir of carbon on Earth. Carbon occurs in a various forms in different parts of the carbon cycle. Some of the different forms in which carbon appears are described in Table 1. Refer to the table as you read how carbon moves between reservoirs of the cycle. Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere from several different sources, including those listed below. Most of the sources are also represented in Figure 2, and some are described in detail.
Methane is released into the atmosphere when dead organisms and other organic matter decay in the absence of oxygen. It is produced by landfills, the mining of fossil fuels, and some types of agriculture.
There are also several different ways that carbon leaves the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere when plants and other autotrophs take in carbon dioxide to make organic compounds during photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is also removed when ocean water cools and dissolves more carbon dioxide from the air. These processes are also represented in Figure 2. Because of human activities, there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than in the past hundreds of thousands of years.
Burning fossil fuels and producing concrete has released great quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Cutting forests and clearing land has also increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere because these activities reduce the number of autotrophic organisms that use up carbon dioxide in photosynthesis. In addition, clearing often involves burning, which releases carbon dioxide that was previously stored in autotrophs. Most carbon enters the ocean when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in ocean water.
The reaction is given by the equation:. The double-headed arrow indicates that the reaction can occur in either direction, depending on the conditions and the amount of carbon dioxide present. For example, the reaction occurs more readily in the left-to-right direction in cold water.
As a result, near the poles, where ocean water is cooler, more carbon dioxide is dissolved and there is more carbonic acid in the water. Although carbonic acid is a weak acid, it is an important regulator of the acid-base pH balance of ocean water.
This occurs in the following reaction:. Due to these two reactions, most dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean is in the form of bicarbonate ions. Another source of bicarbonate ions in ocean water is runoff.
Flowing water erodes rocks containing carbon compounds such as calcium carbonate. This forms bicarbonate ions, which the runoff carries to streams, rivers, and eventually the ocean. Many of the bicarbonate ions in ocean water are moved by ocean currents into the deep ocean.
Carbon can be held in this deep ocean reservoir as bicarbonate ions for thousands of years or more. Bicarbonate ions near the surface of the ocean may be taken up by photosynthetic algae and bacteria that live near the surface.
These and other autotrophic organisms use bicarbonate ions or other forms of carbon to synthesize organic compounds. Carbon is essential for life because it is the main ingredient of every type of organic compound. Organic compounds make up the cells and tissues of all organisms and keep organisms alive and functioning.
Carbon enters all ecosystems, both terrestrial and aquatic, through autotrophs such as plants or algae. Autotrophs use carbon dioxide from the air, or bicarbonate ions from the water, to make organic compounds such as glucose.
Heterotrophs consume the organic molecules and pass the carbon through food chains and webs. How does carbon cycle back to the atmosphere or ocean? All organisms release carbon dioxide as a byproduct of cellular respiration. Cellular respiration is the process by which cells oxidize glucose and produce carbon dioxide, water, and energy.
Decomposers also release carbon dioxide when they break down dead organisms and other organic waste. In a balanced ecosystem, the amount of carbon used in photosynthesis and passed through the ecosystem is about the same as the amount given off in respiration and decomposition. This cycling of carbon between the atmosphere and organisms forms an organic pathway in the carbon cycle. Carbon can cycle quickly through this organic pathway, especially in aquatic ecosystems.
In fact, during a given period of time, much more carbon is recycled through the organic pathway than through the geological pathway you will read about next. The geological pathway of the carbon cycle takes much longer than the organic pathway described above. In fact, it usually takes millions of years for carbon to cycle through the geological pathway. It involves processes such as rock formation, subduction, and volcanism.
As stated previously, most carbon in ocean water is in the form of bicarbonate ions. Dead organisms also settle to the bottom of the ocean.
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