Recycled PET summer flower Daily Essential Beauty Headbands – BEA011

Recycling plastics also helps decrease the amount of plastic waste that enters landfills. Plastics in landfills take thousands of years to break down, and can leach toxic chemicals into the Earth. These chemicals can make their way into groundwater reserves, endangering both humans and animals. Plastics that “break down”, only do so into smaller pieces of plastic, which are still harmful to the ecosystems they may end up in.

Energy is a big part of this equation, too! Creating a plastic water bottle from 100% recycled content uses 75% less energy than its virgin counterpart. Although some energy and water is still needed to process these plastics into new forms (which is why we love reusable!), the amount is significantly less than creating first-time plastics. This translates to less resource extraction, which protects the natural landscapes where oil and natural gas are extracted. This also means that there is less carbon emitted during the creation of new products. One year’s worth of recycling common plastics in the US can create the equivalent energy savings of taking 360,000 cars off the road.