Recycling is an industrial process that closely mirrors the processes of nature that purify the air, water and soil on the planet. Nature cannot setup new ways of providing carbon dioxide for plants to fuel photosynthesis with, nature must always rely upon other organisms that breathe out carbon dioxide with every breath. The very concept of recycling is an admission that industrial manufacturing must also obey the laws of nature. At a certain point, there will be no more tin, iron, uranium or other precious materials to mine out of the earth. Instead, a civilization with manufacturing needs will have to turn to waste retrieval to power factories. The plastic bottle that you drink from today may be turned into insulation for a house ten years from now.

Sundance Channel’s THE GREEN has tried hard to capture a few iconic examples of people who are invested in the recycling business. We hope you enjoy some of the clips below.

BIG IDEAS FOR A SMALL PLANET: RECYCLE [www.sundancechannel.com]

Three fantastic businesses exemplify the heart of recycling in a profitable business that promotes a second life for products while reducing the amount of waste in the world. Ken Wells, of the Sonoma Landfill runs a sanitary landfill in Sonoma county that collects up virtually everything that is thrown out. This business actually makes a good amount of money by recycling organic waste and then selling the compost, or fertilizer to the local community.

Ecoist [www.ecoist.com] is the second business featured in this week’s episode and they make designer quality products like handbags, wallets, fashion accessories and much more. They employ fair wage workers to make the raw materials for the final products, using recycled materials as their building blocks.

The third business featured is the Capitol Area Corporate Recycling Council (CACRC) [www.cacrc.com]. This business accepts all types of electronic waste, but mostly focuses on discarded computers. They refurbish these computers and sell them for less than one hundred dollars to schools and lower income people who would like to play with computers.

To learn more about the whole BIG IDEAS FOR A SMALL PLANET series, check out THE GREEN [www.sundancechannel.com].

If you are interested in finding the physical locations for some of the BIG IDEAS businesses, check out the marker group [www.sundancechannel.com].

ECOISTS: Ron Livingston [www.sundancechannel.com]

Ron Livingston adores solar energy. He thinks that a solution that provides limitless energy for people is one people should support. Perhaps a political leader could propose such a big project and then all people need to do is vote for that leader. Seems simple enough.

ECO BIZ: Hanger Network [www.sundancechannel.com]

Bob Kantor, the founder of Hanger Network [www.hangernetwork.com], came up with a genius business idea that has revolutionized the hangers you get from your dry cleaner. He realized that hangers for clothing costs dry cleaner companies big bucks. He also realized that you could get advertisers to pay for advertisements on hangers. He combined these two facts into one business. Find out more in the video clip below.

BURNING THE FUTURE: COAL IN AMERICA [www.sundancechannel.com]

Take a tour of what it takes to turn coal into electricity. Featuring interviews and scientific analysis of coal mining and coal processing plants, this documentary shows you the final frontier of coal.

Thanks again for joining us on THE GREEN Blog. As usual, please make a comment about this post or if any ideas spring to mind, consider adding your thoughts by creating or commenting on an Eco-mmunity Map Marker.

Recycling is one of those behaviors that is so easy that it can seem inconsequential; what’s the difference if you put that one bottle in the trash can instead of the recycle bin, right? Though it might not seem to matter that much, recycling is one of those things whose impact can really be felt and measured by the many collective actions of lots of people. If you don’t think whether or not you recycle really makes much difference, think about these numbers the next time you toss something that belongs in the blue bin.

544,000 — trees saved if every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100% recycled ones.
20 million — tons of electronic waste thrown away each year. One ton of scrap from discarded computers contains more gold than can be produced from 17 tons of gold ore.
9 cubic yards — amount of landfill space saved by recycling one ton of cardboard.
$160 billion — the value of the global recycling industry that employs over 1.5 million people.
79 million tons — the amount of waste material diverted away from disposal in 2005 through recycling and composting, according to the EPA [www.epa.gov]
5% — the fraction of the energy it takes to recycle aluminum versus mining and refining new aluminum, according to Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].
315 kg — or 694 pounds, which is the amount of carbon dioxide not released into the atmosphere each time a metric ton of glass is used to create new glass products, according to Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].
98%: the percentage of glass bottles in Denmark that are refillable. 98% of those are returned by consumers for reuse, also according to Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].
51.5%: the percentage of the paper consumed in the U.S. that was recovered for recycling in 2005 (thanks again, Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org].