How much energy is used per year on recycling, and how much does this process contribute to pollution?

It depends on the product being recycled. However over all recycling uses a lot of energy and it depends on what you compare it to. Other than some plastics or something that has to be shipped great distances recycling will create less pollution than making the same item from raw materials. For example, recycling metal like aluminum uses 90% less energy compared to extracting and processing raw ore. Similar stats for paper and plastic, if you are taking the entire process into account and facts like paper can be recycled up to 4 times.You may also want to take into account the pollution created by putting things into a landfill. Glass is a special case as well, since it is so heavy, however in some situations you can reuse the glass without melting it down, this was something that was very common back when things were regionally distributed, but isn't usually cost effective with national or international distribution. Plastics are there own issue, because their pollution is much harder to track, for most other products, it's only energy and water with a little solid waste to consider. Plastics are toxic all the way through the process and are the most common litter issue as well. They can only be down cycled, which means they can't be turned into a similar product and there is little demand for recycled content because so much of it can't be cost effectively recycled.

The reality is recycling only makes a small dent in our waste stream impact. Don't get me wrong, I believe we need to recycle everything we can. However it is so much more effective not to buy it to begin with. Moving away from single use and disposable items is not only more cost effective for the end user, it cuts the pollution and resource impact dramatically.

I don't know about plastic or glass, but paper uses A LOT of energy and contributes a lot to pollution.

in recycling a lot of energy is used and by- products are also produced like carbon mono oxide etc but sit recycling is Eco friendly because it is less polluting than manufacturing from raw.

30 percent about 15 percent