recycling
recycling Lexical Profile
recycling Game Scores & Validity
• noun
The action or process of converting waste materials into reusable material and new products to prevent waste and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials.
"The city council introduced mandatory curbside recycling to reduce the amount of trash sent to local landfills."
Waste items, such as paper, glass, plastic, and metal containers, that have been separated and collected to be reprocessed into new materials.
"Please remember to take the recycling out to the curb before Wednesday morning."
• verb
To convert waste into reusable material or return material to a previous stage in a cyclic process (present participle of recycle).
"By recycling aluminum cans and glass bottles, our school has significantly reduced its environmental footprint."
To use an idea, joke, or piece of material again, often with minimal alteration (present participle of recycle).
"The screenwriter was criticized for recycling the exact same plot points from his previous films."
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
First recorded in the 1920s in the petroleum refining industry, formed from the prefix 're-' (again) and the verb 'cycle' (ultimately from Ancient Greek 'kyklos', meaning circle or wheel). Its environmental sense of reprocessing household waste became widespread in the late 1960s and early 1970s.