5.5 Conserving Materials
Why conserve materials?
1) There is only a limited supply of metal ores in the Earth. Therefore metals are ftnite resources. They do not get replaced once they are used up.
Ways to conserve materials
- One way to conserve materials is through recycling.
- Advantages of recycling:
- Recycling saves new resources
- Recycling reduces the amount of waste materials to be disposed off
- Recycling saves energy because less energy is needed to recycle metals than to extract it from their ores
- Recycling protects the environment because it reduces pollution associated with product manufacture, disposal and For example, the process of extracting metals produces gases which can lead to acid rain.
- Two metals that can be recycled easily are copper and aluminium. Glass can also be recycled easily
- Another way to conserve materials is using renewable resources. Examples are like water, wood, sunlight, wind and etcetera