...United States produces 200 million tons of garbage, and that only includes what is legally dumped. Really, how much in 200M tons? It's enough metal to build four million automobiles, enough wood to construct 2 million homes, enough paper to publish all the daily newspapers in the country, enough aluminum to rebuild the entire American air fleet 100 times, and would fill 15 million garbage trucks. Trash. We're drowning in it. Unless Americans take a more responsible role in recycling today, we are going to all be dead tomorrow! So, sort your trash. It is easy to recycle most household products and it will only take a little of your time. What’s the deal with recycling? It is such an important environmental issue, and yet it seems as though there isn’t much done about it as a community. If you ask a random person on the street what they think about recycling, nine times out of ten they’ll smirk and tell you “It’s good for the environment.” But, really, they don’t understand the significance of recycling. Recycling is plainly returning an item back to its original condition so that it can be reused. As astonishing as it may seem, the average american citizen disposes of 4.6 pounds of waste per day, which would equate to more than a thousand six hundred pounds per year. Surprising, half of this outlandish total of waste dump could easily be recycled. Most people...
Words: 1147 - Pages: 5
...extent recycling is an effective method for the disposal of domestic waste? As consumption is a necessary and natural activity for humans, it is an inevitable consequence the generation of garbage. According to National Statistics (2013), each person in England in 2012/13 produce around 423kg of household waste per year. Moreover, people are discussing about the correct disposal of garbage in order to reduce environmental impact from chemical and physical reactions. Recycling appeared as an alternative solution for the traditional methods to dispose rubbish, as mostly people know, this is a process which provide the reuse of waste instead of wait to the natural decomposition. Facing the rise in environmental awareness, it is increasing the amount of recyclable waste. It is indicated by DEFRA (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, 2007) that in 2020 , 50% of household waste will be recycled compared to 43.2% in England in 2012/13 (National Statistics, 2013). For many reasons, recycle is an efficient way to dispose domestic waste. First of all, it is known that recycling friendly works with the environment. The others methods as incineration and landfill cause more harms. For example, as waste decomposes in landfills methane is generated as product, which it is a famous greenhouse gas and contributes to the global warming. As the BBC Weather Centre (2009) affirms, methane “produces 21 times as much warming as CO2”.In addition, recycling reduce...
Words: 729 - Pages: 3
...Recycling Recycling is a commonly heard term specially in science classes, it means to dispose of materials the correct way so it can be reused. Although it is commonly well known many people ignore the fact that in order for it to work they actually need to regularly participate in the recycling process by disposing of their waste the correct way. If every were to do this the term “recycle” would not be seen as the cli·ché term we hear in science class but as a process that is going to help our environment in the long run. There is not only one specific way recycling is beneficial for the environment, we could go different ways with this topic so I am going to address the most important ways recycling helps the environment. Such as landfill reduction, pollution, energy consumption reduction, and also it can be cost efficient for companies or manufacturers. Landfills are made to hold up all the waste us, humans, produce and all these landfills contain harmful chemicals and or substance that are dangerous not only for us but for the environment in which we live in. All these items such as plastics take thousands of years to decompose naturally and leave behind a big ecological footprint behind. Instead of dumping old items we do not use anymore we should be focused on seeing how that item can be reused either by using it for something else or simply by taking it to a recycling plant so they can break it apart and reuse parts and bits of it. The more waste we prevent...
Words: 503 - Pages: 3
...there is no more room for the over growing garbage. Some landfills burn garbage in incinerators which release dangerous gases and dust particles into the air which in turn contribute to global warming and pollute lakes. Burying garbage as most landfills causes both air and water pollution. Recycling of plastic and rubber would benefit the world in many ways. It would reduce the need to create more landfills, reduce water and air pollution, and produces less carbon dioxide. When there is a need to create another landfill it can cause problems for the environment, and the cost of locating a suitable place to create the landfill can be expensive. Landfills take away from our natural resources, pollutes our waters, and the air we breathe. If everyone pitched in and recycled the little things like rubber and plastic it would prevent them from becoming over filled which would lessen the chances of garbage materials would leak into water ways or even pollute soil. With the potential chance of our water ways and soil that we use to plant food in becoming contaminated it makes sense to recycle these items. Recycling plastic can be a significant key to reducing waste in landfills and be a downfall. Recycling plastic is necessary because it helps to avoid their accumulation in landfills. Because plastic has a low density and is slow to decompose it makes it a pollutant. Plastic can sit in a landfill for years taking up space. When plastic items are separated having something like a lid left...
Words: 791 - Pages: 4
...Recycling Everyone can take part of save the planet. One of the most contributing ways of saving the planet is by recycling. These three words reduce, reuse, and recycle is talking about how people handle waste, which currently is a big issue in the United States. In today’s society, landfills are overflowing causing serious issues that need to be addressed. Knowing how to address them and how to correct the problem can be an easy process if taught the proper way to do it. Recycling allows today’s society to process used materials, which reduce the consumption of raw materials, energy, pollution, greenhouse emissions, and the need for conventional waste disposal. Recycling is one of the ultimate solutions to reduce the amount of waste that is constantly dumped into our landfills. The United States is the number one trash producing country in the world. (www.nbci.nlm.nih.gov, 2010) The United States have environmentalist groups that are really pushing for stricter laws regarding recycling. These environmentalist groups do not only want to make it a choice but demand that every American household must recycle in order to reduce the amount of waste that is entering American landfills. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 32.1% of solid waste is recycled, 13.6% is incinerated, and 54.3% end up in landfills, yet some believe that approximately 90% of all solid waste is recyclable. (Chase, Dominick, Trepa, Bailey,& Friedman, 2009) (www.lwvmd.org) Solid waste...
Words: 1586 - Pages: 7
...diminishing the amount of trash and garbage that we produce each year. One easy way of doing that is by a method called recycling. Many might not know the importance of recycling and what it can do to our environment. While recycling has become part of the daily routine for many people, the full importance of recycling is not always understood. In general, people do understand that recycling helps to minimize the drain on the limited resources of our planet. However, there are several other factors that make recycling important which will be discussed in this paper. Although recycling may seem like a modern concept introduced with the environmental movement of the 1970s, it's actually been around for thousands of years. Prior to the industrial age, you couldn't make goods quickly and cheaply, so virtually everyone practiced recycling in some form. However, large-scale recycling programs were very rare -- households predominantly practiced recycling. The mass production of the industrial age is, in many ways, the very reason we need to worry about large-scale recycling. When products can be produced (and purchased) very cheaply, it often makes more economic sense to simply throw away old items and purchase brand new ones. However, this culture of "disposable" goods created a number of environmental problems. In the 1930s and 40s, conservation and recycling became important in American society and in many other parts of the world. Economic depressions made...
Words: 1996 - Pages: 8
...ENG 170 Lisa Tellor-Kelley November 9, 2015 Mandatory Recycling In The United States. The average American can produce around 1600 pounds of trash each year. If you break that down, that’s about 29 pounds of trash in a week and about 4.4 pounds in a single day. What person wants to live somewhere they are surrounded by trash? If everyone in the United States did their part in recycling then this would not be as serious. Once society makes a stand and work together to solve this, it can be solved sooner rather than later. Sea creatures, wildlife and humans have all been affected by people that do no recycle. There should be a law in the United States that makes recycling mandatory in every state. By people not recycling has made a drastic change in the climate. Trees have been cut down and new resources are in a huge demand because of people not recycling. After the trees are cut down, fuel is needed to transport the trees and to make new paper. When the fuel is being used it gets burned and being released as a greenhouse in the environment. Sometimes, papers do not reach landfills and the papers that do not reach the landfills should be processed. Even if it does reach the landfills, it should remain there until the earth absorbs and processes it. Even though paper disintegrates faster than Styrofoam and plastic, instead of consuming new paper, just recycle the old one paper. Human waste is the reason landfills are so overcrowded. The paper that does not get recycled gets...
Words: 1886 - Pages: 8
...What is Recycling? Recycling is a pretty simple concept: take something that isn't useful anymore and make it into something new instead of just throwing it away. It can be anything from recycling old paper into new paper, to making an old hubcap into a decorative birdbath. In reality, recycling can get pretty complex -- how it interacts with our environment, our politics, our economy and even our own human behaviour patterns will play a major role in the future of our planet. What is Recycling? Recycling can take many forms. On a small scale, any time you find a new use for something old, you're recycling. One example is making old cereal boxes into magazine holders Recycling becomes more important on larger scales. At this level, used consumer goods are collected, converted back into raw materials and remade into new consumer products. Aluminum cans, office paper, steel from old buildings and plastic containers are all examples of materials commonly recycled in large quantities, often through municipal programs encouraging bulk household collections. It's rare for a recycled product to be exactly the same as the original material from which it was recycled. Recycled paper, for example, contains ink residue and has shorter fibers than virgin paper (paper made from wood pulp). Because of this, it may be less desirable for some purposes, such as paper used in a copy machine. When a recycled good is cheaper or weaker than the original product, it's known as down-cycling...
Words: 5288 - Pages: 22
...The City of Chicago has open its doors by implementing a recycling program that resident’s can be a part of. Their contribution will help to improve the quality of Chicago’s environment and shine a light on the benefits of recycling. Residents of Chicago who participate in the blue cart recycling program understand the importance behind the recycling initiative. To improve the environment and protect natural resources, residents must change their habits and adjust to new methods of disposing household waste. Through education and participation families will benefit from recycling. More importantly, families will experience a sense of contribution. Households will develop a routine and as time goes on, recycling for most people will become second nature. Thankfully, Chicagoans all across the city are experiencing the benefits of recycling for the first time. Although recycling is beneficial for the environment, the advantages for Chicago residents are clean neighborhoods, community programs, and infrastructure projects. The citywide recycling campaign is taking place in stages for the City of Chicago residents. By 2013, City Hall has grown the blue cart recycling program to seven communities serving over 600,000 homes. “This recycling and education program affirms Mayor Emanuel’s commitment to create a healthier and more sustainable Chicago.” (2013). In the first place, residents received information through the mail on how and when the service is available in their neighborhood...
Words: 1512 - Pages: 7
...Recycling Environmental Awareness In society today more and more people are becoming conscious of environmental issues such as recycling. People recycle everything from paper to computer hardware. For this assignment I examine two articles both with similarities and differences on the actual benefits of recycling on the environment. .According to an article in the National Geographic, (Zeller.Jr., 2008, para. 1). “Consider the true cost of a product over its entire life—from harvesting the raw materials to creating, consuming, and disposing of it—and the scale tips dramatically in recycling’s favor”. The article in National Geographic uses data from recent studies to prove recycling is better for the environment because it keeps trash from going into landfills where it sits buried or burns and emits toxic fumes into the environment. Even though it cost recycling companies more money to recycle one’s trash than to make any financial profits, and the large trucks that pick up the recyclables will emit carbon dioxide and require more consumption of energy, it still makes more sense to recycle considering all the word’s trash. “The short answer is: Yes” (Zeller.Jr., 2008, para. 1). An interesting point in this article is that the United States is behind on making production companies responsible in sharing the costs for the recycling burden “extended producer responsibility,” such as in Europe known as The Packaging Waste Directive of 1994. In Europe production companies...
Words: 619 - Pages: 3
...Why Is Recycling So Important Environmental Sciences Essay Recycling is a process of using waste materials into new products to prevent wastage of useful materials, reduces the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce usage of energy, and reduces mainly land pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal. Recycling is a key component of reducing modern waste and is the third component of the 3R concepts that are "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle “A. The recycling symbol is recognized symbol used to designate recyclable materials internationally. It is composed of three chasing arrows that form an unending loop. Importance of recycling Recycling is essential to both to human beings and its surrounding environment. Some facts about how rubbish that we produce is constantly increasing: I. Population is being increased and that means there are more people to create waste. ii. The wealth is being increased and that means people are buying more and more products and creating more waste ultimately. iii. Lifestyle is being changed, such as consuming more fast food nowadays, and that means we create additional waste that is non-biodegradable. Iv. Developing of new technological products and new packaging are being created, most of the materials in these products that are non-biodegradable. Importance to people Around the world, recycling is important to cities and to the people living here and there in these cities. i. Generally preserving natural...
Words: 570 - Pages: 3
...ideas and develop new projects of becoming greener. Our goal is to be a green friendly hotel that cares about our nature and to be able to reach these goals we have these meetings once a month. One of our developed projects is the green meeting program that minimizes harm to the environment during meetings and events, provides guidance and assistance in executive green meetings and meets the needs of the customer requesting a green meeting event. Basically, a green meeting supports a green initiative and is expected to save money while improving the environment. The greening of a meeting can be accomplished in many ways; including not pre-filling water glasses at banquet tables, collecting name tags and badge holders for reuse, providing recycling areas inside exhibition areas, and using compostable cups instead of water bottles. The bottom line is that we want to make people aware of becoming more environmentally friendly. 2. Manage your hotel’s environmental performance by monitoring the electric, gas, water, and waste usage information on a monthly and annual basis. Our engineering department will make sure our hotels environmental performance will be monitored on a monthly basis to make sure that we don’t go over our economical friendly limit. It is very important to our property to stay in our budget of going green and to make sure we monitor everything very careful so we don’t maximize our green factor. 3. Replace incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps wherever...
Words: 1326 - Pages: 6
...Recycling is better for the environment, there is very little landfill space left, and is cheaper than using virgin materials. That is what people are led to believe, but none of that is true for the majority of materials some metals like aluminum are better to recycle, but glass, plastic, and paper are better to make out of virgin material. I n calendar year two thousand nine, forty four landfills accepted almost forty six million gate cubic yards of solid waste; eight percent less waste than was accepted during two thousand eight Some of these landfills were not active during the full year. Twenty-four of the forty four landfills accepted five million three hundred thousand gate cubic yards of waste from other states. Capacity remaining at forty seven landfills on Jan. 1, 2010, declined by less than one percent. This total of more than one billion gate cubic yards of available capacity was down more than eight million gate cubic yards from data reported a year earlier. (Nonhazardous Solid Waste Management and Landfill Capacity) The United States Environmental Protection Agency has a voluntary assistance program, meant to help reduce methane emitted from landfill by encouraging the recovery of said methane to eventually be used as an energy source. As solid waste decomposes it gives off a gas which is comprised of roughly fifty percent methane, fifty percent carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of non-methane organic compounds. Landfill gas can be collected, converted, and used...
Words: 1340 - Pages: 6
...RECYCLING....A NEVER ENDING CYCLE Just about everything these days can be recycled. For example, more and more vehicle manufacturers are designing more fuel efficient vehicles that are able to operate using only recyclable elements. This is just one way that an individual can save money. It is so very important to do everything that you can do to to save our Earth and it all starts in the beginning of the cycle, which starts the recycling process. Everyone should be more aware about all the products that can be recycled because it's only helping our world. In this world we are a team. They help & encourage others to rise all together. So why not encourage people to help the world out more? Recycling is a giant part of keeping our world clean. It is taking a greater importance as they seek a way to build a more healthy future. One of my friends has a sister who is dental assistant and when I brought up the topic of recycling she told me that they do not recycle very much. She also explained to me that a dental office can be very wasteful. Dental offices don't recycle much. And when they do it's mostly aluminum cans, paper, and amalgam scraps that are left over from patient office procedures. I asked her if she recycled at home, and she said that she did sometimes, but most of the items that got recycled were aluminum cans. She thanked me for bringing up the awareness of recycling and how important it is. Just talking about recycling to others is influencing. In...
Words: 384 - Pages: 2
...Is Recycling Efficient? Antonio Childress Baker College ECN 202 Sections 00630 Mr. R. Jordan May 19, 2012 Is Recycling Efficient Recycling is the process of converting waste products into reusable materials; it is an ancient practice with many modern applications, recycling differs from reuse, which simply means using a product again. It refers to the recovery and reuse of materials from spent products. In recent years recycling has become a major part of environmental policy, mainly because of the increased costs of solid- and hazardous-waste disposal, the scarcity of natural resources, and the growing concern over polluted land, water, and air. There are two types of recycling operations: internal and external. Internal recycling is the reuse in a manufacturing process of materials that are a waste product of that process. Internal recycling is common in the metals industry. External recycling is the reclaiming of materials from a product that has been worn out or considered obsolete. An example of external recycling is the collection of old newspapers and magazines for the manufacture of newsprint or other paper products. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), about 30 percent of U.S. solid waste is recycled. About 15 percent is incinerated and about 55 percent goes into landfills. Recycling is appealing because it seems to offer a way to simultaneously reduce the amount of waste disposed in landfills and save natural resources....
Words: 1441 - Pages: 6
