Recycling: As A Way of Life

Recycling is a very popular topic nowadays. One reoccurring theme is that recycling is great for the environment and for one’s wallet. Recycling is a very effective system now and almost certainly will be very effective in the future. There is an enormous quantity of recyclable materials. Recycling works very well even if some people do not participate. There are countless reasons to recycle. To become more aware of the need for recycling now and in the future, one must examine just how much can be recycled, how easily it can be done, and how much it will benefit the world.

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate protection programs prevented 70 million tons of “greenhouse” gases from entering the atmosphere in 2006. That is a 111% increase from 2005. However, a good number of recycling programs either: recycle as little as possible with huge restrictions on what can be recycled and/or the recycling companies mix it with trash and throw it all in a landfill. If everyone could just use a reusable bag for lunch we could save an estimated one and a half tons of paper or plastic bags each day.

In the future, nuclear power will have eliminated coal and other nonrenewable resources. This will cut down on a massive amount of greenhouse gases. However nuclear power-plants produce “radioactive waste that needs to be buried in steel containers surrounded in concrete for hundreds of years”. Because of the increasing amount of countries becoming “technically advanced” in the near future, there will undoubtedly be much more production of plastic, metal, paper and greenhouse gases.

Undoubtedly, the five main things that need to be recycled are: glass, plastic, paper, metal and unusual recyclables such as batteries and automobile parts. Plastic is the most commonly recycled material. It is all around; at one’s school, computers, at the office, cars, drinking bottles, containers, in the world’s lakes and landfills.

Each year the companies that produce aluminum pay out more than $800,000,000 for recycled materials, money that helps the economy and heads back into the community. In sixty days an aluminum container can be recycled, turned back into a can, refilled with product and back on store shelves.

As well as the obvious, one must understand the unusual things that can be recycled. Polypropylene bottles and car batteries can be turned into high-quality pipes. Almost every part of one’s car can be recycled from the metal frame to the battery to the oil. Ford has even made an entirely decomposable car. If batteries are not properly disposed of, the chemicals inside including, “nickel cadmium, alkaline, mercury, nickel metal hydrate, and lead,” can leak into the world’s water, be consumed by animals or poison people. Even organic waste from food, yard waste and other materials can be composted into rich soil.

Nobody denies that recycling is a very efficient and practical system when put into practice. When one recycles paper, it goes to a processing center where it is turned into pulp. The paper pulp goes to a paper mill where it is reused and put back into the system. Plastic and metals are sorted and squeezed. These will be melted and reused. When one recycles rubber such as tires or gym shoes, the rubber can be shredded and turned into insulation or animal bedding. Nike even has a program where old shoes are recycled and turned into playgrounds and tracks. Rubber can also be made into a sand substitute .

Recycling helps the planet in countless ways. From that line of sight it easy to see that the economical benefits alone are huge. This is partly because, the energy required to recycle plastic is a tiny little fraction of the cost to make new plastic. A decent sized percentage of Americans do not even take their trash to a landfill or dump or pick-up station,people just “fly-dump”, dumping trash by the side of the road. This creates the need for government action, and eventually the need for money to clear out illegal dumping areas. Plastic can easily be melted down and remolded, and because one do not have to go through the much more expensive process of making new plastic it is extremely cost-effective.

Along with economics, the environmental benefits of recycling are tremendous. For example, “90% of what we throw away goes into landfills which [has the capacity to] leak into and contaminate the soil and water”. The air one breathes has a vast impact upon one’s health. Many cities across the nation have a serious air pollution problem. This can be caused by, among other factors, decomposing materials in landfills, cars and fossil fuels burning such as coal or oil. America, as a nation, takes what one throws away for granted. Almost everything, not contaminated by food, that one throws away can be recycled and reused. From garbage one can build buildings, make works of art or expand a child’s creativity. There are all colorful and innovative new ways to recycle. What is thrown away has the capacity to enter the world’s lakes, rivers, and oceans. This is a threat to animal, plant, and marine life everywhere. For example, a 6-pack ring can snare innocent fish, birds and marine mammals. It is estimated that over one hundred tons of garbage enters the world’s oceans every year.

As was stated by the great humanitarian, William Booth, “there appears to be a deeply embedded uneasiness in one’s culture about throwing away junk that can be reused. Perhaps, in part, it is guilt about consumption. Perhaps it also feels unnatural. Mother Nature does not throw stuff away. Dead trees, birds, beetles and elephants are pretty quickly recycled by the system”. Plastic does not decompose, after it becomes buried it never completely decomposes. This is a threat to the world’s environment because plastic waste is eaten by animals, chokes or suffocates and, poisons animals. Plastic is also burned which pollutes the atmosphere, and there is the threat of waste dumps, where plastic sent when it is thrown away, accidentally catching fire. Degradable plastics are being produced but are not widely available yet. Plastic can easily be melted down and reused. This makes plastic one of the easiest things to recycle and yet, millions world wide refuse to recycle. Climate change has been directly linked to the build up of infamous greenhouse gases caused in part by pollution from fossil fuels, plants, the burning of materials to dispose of them, and rotting landfill waste.

Our environmental issues are global, as reinforced by the fact that the average Englishman throws away two pounds of waste every day. How ever the blame is largely on America’s shoulders because in America the average person throws away four pounds of recyclable material a day. 40% of what is thrown away is recyclable. When one adds that up, the average Englishman throws away two-hundred and ninety-two pounds of recyclable pounds of recyclable paper each year. The average American throws away five hundred and eighty-four pounds of recyclable material each year. America has a population of about three hundred million. This means that America generates 175,200,000,000 lbs. of recyclable paper each year. That is a lot of unnecessary waste. The average adult male weighs about two hundred pounds. That means it would take eight hundred and seventy-six million people to weigh as much as the recyclable paper America generates in a year. that is a lot of paper. “But our waste problem is not the fault only of producers. It is the fault of an economy that is wasteful from top to bottom—a symbiosis of an unlimited greed at the top and a lazy, passive, and self-indulgent consumptiveness at the bottom—and all of us are involved in it”.

While lead is not known to be recyclable it still needs to be properly disposed of. As recent events have pointed out, lead can be found in toys, especially from the Chinese. This plays a huge problem as lead is extremely harmful to children under the age of six. For the sake of America’s children, lead needs to be properly disposed of. “Much of our waste problem is to be accounted for by the intentional flimsiness and irreparability of the labor-savers and gadgets that we have become addicted to”.

Although many people do not understand the need for recycling, or decide to ignore it, one must understand how well recycling works, as well as discover how wide the range of materials that can be recycled is, and how much the entire planet will benefit from recycling. Recycling is nothing new, it has been around for over one hundred years, and will continue to play an important role in Earth’s future. There is an incredibly vast amount of materials that are recyclable. Recycling is an incredibly effective system because of how many people work to recycle and thus, make Earth a little greener. The economical and environmental benefits of recycling are enormous and far outweigh the cost in time and dollars. Recycling is certain to play a crucial role in every part of one’s daily life.