Nature Reuses and Recycles

Nature Reuses and Recycles

Recycle, Reuse, or Trash? Clink! Bonk! Plunk! Those are the sounds of cans and bottles being tossed into the trash-or into the recycling bin. Items such as cans, bottles, and newspapers can be treated as trash, but they can be recycled instead. When you recycle something, the materials that make up the thing can be remade into a new thing.

Recycling is different from reusing. When you reuse something, you keep it in the same form and do not have to break it down and remake it. When you reuse a bottle, you might fill it up with water again, but you don't have to reuse something for its original purpose. When you reuse a soup can, you might keep pencils in it. When you reuse newspaper, you might use it to wrap birthday presents. After you are through reusing something, you can then recycle it or reuse it again!

Nature Reuses and Recycles People are not the only ones who reuse and recycle. Nature does this, too, with organic materials. Organic materials are what living things are made of. By reusing and recycling organic materials in nature, living things adapt and survive. Take a tree. Every part of it can be used and reused in some way by other living things. Other plants, along with insects, birds, and other animals, have adapted to use parts of the tree to help them survive, too.

For instance, the original purpose of a tree's leaves is to make food for the tree to survive. But a tree's leaves also offer shade for sprouting plants. Birds line their nests with leaves. Sometimes squirrels reuse a bird's nest for their own. Some insects make homes from dead leaves. That's five uses for the same leaves! Trees are used in other ways, too. Owls make homes in the hollows of tree trunks. Beavers cut down trees and branches to make their homes. Some animals eat bark, leaves, and fruit from trees.

Trees also provide valuable help to other living things when they die. Fallen trees become “ nurse logs" that provide food and a protected place for new trees and other plants to grow. Dead trees provide a home for animals. They can also provide food and building materials for other organisms.