Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, recently called upon the residents of the city to put a renewed emphasis on their recycling efforts, which he claims could save the town a fair chunk of change. Around eighty percent of garbage could be recycled instead of thrown away and put in landfills. Last year, Londoners managed to save £30 million just by properly disposing their waste materials and Johnson hopes to expand on those efforts.

Officials are pointing out that it costs 25 cents more to throw away recyclable materials than it does to put them in the right waste disposal. Johnson hopes that, by continuing to push for green initiatives, the city can save £320m by 2015.

"Recycling our waste material makes sound economic as well as environmental sense. This fantastic new campaign brings home the simple but powerful message that every item recycled rather than binned, collectively saves the city big bucks," he said in a statement.

Some say that recycling has the added bonus of creating jobs. If London recycled 60 percent of all trash, there would be 350 new positions each year until 2025. Innovative companies are using these materials to create more environmentally-friendly products. For example, Uptown Oil collects used cooking oil to develop biodiesel that can be used in a number of different vehicles.

Recycling has been proven to create jobs as well as make for a greener environment. In the United States, there are more than 1 million jobs based in the recycling field, according to Recycling-Revolution.com.

"Public sector investment in local recycling programs pays great dividends by creating private sector jobs. For every job collecting recyclables, there are 26 jobs in processing the materials and manufacturing them into new products," the website reports.