--- title: Recycling: giving materials a second life — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Recycling: giving materials a second life», a lesson of the chemistry course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: After dinner you rinse a tin, flatten a cereal box and drop a bottle into the right bin. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Chemistry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/) / Recycling: giving materials a second l… # Recycling: giving materials a second life Lesson 32 of the chemistry course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/0/) — After dinner you rinse a tin, flatten a cereal box and drop a bottle into the right bin. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/1/) — Each bin goes to a different place, because cans, paper, glass and plastic are each turned back into raw material in their own way. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/2/) — An aluminium drinks can is melted down and can be a new can back in the shop within about two months, using far less energy than digging up new rock. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/3/) — Paper is soaked and mashed into new paper, and plastic bottles can be spun into threads for fleece jackets. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/4/) — Recycling is good, but it still uses energy and trucks. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/5/) — Best of all is to reduce what we use, next to reuse things, and only then to recycle: that is why the saying goes "reduce, reuse, recycle" in that order. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/6/) — What is not recycled often goes to landfill, a huge hole where rubbish is buried and slowly rots, giving off a gas called methane. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/7/) — Each recycling bin collects a different material, because materials are recycled in different ways; dirty or mixed rubbish can spoil a whole load. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/8/) — An aluminium can can be recycled and be back on the shelf within about two months, and melting old cans needs far less energy than making aluminium from rock. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/9/) — Aluminium and glass can be recycled again and again without wearing out. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/10/) — Paper is soaked, mashed into pulp and pressed into new paper; its fibres get shorter each time, so paper can be recycled only a few times. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/11/) — Food scraps can be composted: microbes break them down into compost, which feeds plants. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/12/) — Old clothes can be passed on, sold second-hand or shredded into stuffing; clothes of mixed fibres are hard to recycle, and making new clothes uses lots of water. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/13/) — Batteries go in special collection boxes, never ordinary bins: they contain metals that harm nature if they leak and can be recovered, and batteries in bins can start fires in rubbish trucks. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/14/) — Plastic bottles can be melted and spun into fibres for fleece jackets; a jacket is often said to take about 25 bottles. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/16/) — The order is reduce first, reuse second and recycle third, because recycling still uses energy; a reusable bottle can replace hundreds of throwaway ones. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/32-recycling-second-life/17/) — In landfill, rubbish rots without air and bacteria make methane, a gas that warms the planet; some landfills collect it to make electricity. - ← previous: [Metals and what they're good for](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/31-metals-what-theyre-good-for/) - next →: [The air we breathe](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/33-the-air-we-breathe/) - ↑ back to [Chemistry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/)