The production of paper also is costly, and during these times where we hear a lot of horror stories regarding environmental degradation and pollution, the quest to save our forests requires that we lessen our consumption of paper and other wood by-products. Paper Recycling Helps Save The Forests As the demand for paper and wood increases, more and more timber is required to meet the ever-growing demand for wood pulp. Incandescent lighting units generally have life spans of around 750 to 1,000 hours. CFL units however, use less power and have longer shelf lives. While CFL s have a quite higher purchase price, it can save as much as 30 dollars in electricity costs over the lighting unit s life span. Environmental Issues Regarding The Use Of CFLs While compact fluorescent lamps have longer life spans, and save you money on electricity bills, these products contain mercury, which makes their disposal a quite complex one. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 used to be the main federal law governing the recycling of computers. However, new federal bills, such as the National Computer Recycling Act, have been introduced to reduce electronic waste, and mitigate their environmental impact. Many computer manufacturers are now also offering some form of recycling to their clients. The process of recycling plastic starts from the time the material is made, to the time it is once again reused as a new product after the recycling process. Today, most cities and towns have recycling facilities, where residents drop off their recyclable items at collection facilities, and the plastics are sorted, cleaned, as well as reprocessed into new materials. However, these pay homeowners or consumers a price that s based on the market value of their items. Recycling offers a wide array of economic and environmental benefits. Recycling can help save millions of dollars from city or municipal budgets, because there s less demand for landfills or new garbage collection trucks. Producing recycled paper also consumes less energy and water, as compared to harvesting, processing and transporting timber. Recycling Provides Additional Jobs Recycling actually helps provide new jobs. While some critics counter that recycling creates jobs that offer low pay and terrible working conditions, recycling advocates stress that the jobs involving the recovery or processing of raw materials such as in mining or timber production, are actually more dangerous than recycling jobs.