Recycling

Recycling: The Technology of Conserving

In an age of global warming and other environmental tribulations, the only question people are posing is how to protect both the world and themselves. Many people believe that the answers lye within technology such as hybrid-cars, and the radical planet saving ideas of scientists. The real answers lay within each and every person. Both people and the world would benefit greatly from greater recycling. With a larger emphasis on recycling, the Earth would be a cleaner place, as well as a healthier home for all of its inhabitants. The best part about recycling is its easiness. The process only takes minutes sometimes seconds to do with regularly used materials such as paper, plastic, and glass. The most important effect recycling would have would be its capability to conserve raw materials. With its great simplicity and abilities to conserve and clean the environment, it’s a wonder why recycling is not as widespread. It is for these reasons why recycling should be a nationally enforced regulation.

Though some people find recycling time consuming and monotonous, it is well worth these small inconveniences. Many of the people who believe this also are not as well informed to the problems facing the environment. As more and more garbage and waste is being recklessly tossed around, polluting the ground, water, and air, more and more problems arise with health conditions. The biggest problem facing human health in the next decade is the contamination of the drinkable water supply. As recyclable products sit and deteriorate in landfills, their by-products go into the soil and thus into the ground water. Because ground water is 30% of the water we drink or use to wash, almost 1/3 of people’s water is being polluted and resting in their bodies. This ground water also provides for animals and plants essential for a healthy ecosystem, and if contaminated, most of this life will expire. Air pollution is another outcome of not recycling. The only difference between water and ground pollution compared to air pollution is that the contaminants go up in the air instead of down into the soil and water supply. These gasses in Earth’s atmosphere are causing not only global warming but unhealthy situations for human beings. Places such as Mexico City, and Hong Kong have increased death rates just because of the air pollution in their area. Recycling would protect us from harmful by-products that can be found both in the ground and in the air.

Unfortunately this pollution problem persists, and there is little reason why it has to. The process of home recycling is so simple that even small children are able to do it. Paper, glass, and plastic products can be recycled in any area of the country. The problem is that people are finding that separating garbage takes too much of their time away from their day, and are leaving the recycling bins sit in the garage and rot. Data obtained by SWANA, or Solid Waste Association of North America, show that while almost 29% of Americans recycle weekly, another 74% think about it and choose not to. If this many people started recycling into their normal lives, think of all the raw materials that could be saved, all of the lives that could be saved due to pollution sickness, all of the money that could be saved both private and governmental. As a nation, the citizens of the United States have to