Recycling is turning used bottles, cans and paper into new bottles, cans and paper instead of burying them in the ground. The blue bin by the kerb, the bottle bank behind the supermarket, the little triangle of chasing arrows printed on a yoghurt pot.
The word covers the process, the industry and the material itself: in British English 'put it in the recycling' means the bin, or the heap of stuff waiting to go into it. The verb is recycle, the adjective recyclable, and recycled paper is paper made from the old sort. It stretches to ideas — a comedian recycling last year's jokes, a minister recycling the same speech in three cities. Recycling is uncountable, so there is no plural. And it is not reuse: a jam jar you wash and fill again has been reused, not recycled.
1nounrecyclingThe process of treating used materials so they can be made into something new.
“The town's recycling rate has doubled in five years.”
2nounwasteWaste collected to be treated this way, or the bin it goes in.
“The cardboard goes in the recycling, not the rubbish.”
3nounreuseThe reuse of something old in a new form.
“His new album is shameless recycling of his own back catalogue.”
recycling is a process.
recycle comes from re- + cycle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA