When people throw things away, they more than likely don’t think of it afterwards, but what if I told you the things you throw away are negatively affecting the Earth every second? To prevent this problem we use the process, recycling.
Recycling is the act of saving certain trash items with reusable materials, doing this can prevent these trash ports from overflowing and damaging the Earth. Recently, the world has evidently become worse from oceans becoming dirtier due to environmental pollution. These effects decrease the amount of animals in ecosystems and even destroy their habitats.
Recycling bins are one of the ways recycling is used, these bins are used by those who live in neighborhoods to support this cause of protecting the Earth. In a Google Form surveying journalism one student’s opinions on recycling when asked if they have a recycling bin, 85% of people owned one outside their homes, while 15% did not.
To help improve this number, many states are taking recycling into their own hands to prevent pollution within their state. According to TOMRA, people are currently being given money by the Government for recycling bins in 10 out of the 50 states in the U.S, thus helping to spread awareness on the horrible effects not recycling has dealt to the Earth. This, so far, has helped to decrease the amount of trash being put into overflowing landfills.
Now you may be thinking, are recycling bins the only way we can prevent recycling? As far as we know, there are many ways people can help to prevent pollution.
Another way to recycle, is to use reusable items, these are items that do not need to be thrown away, but instead, washed and able to reuse all over again. An example of reusable items are reusable shopping bags, many shopping bags are plastic, and when thrown away, can be dangerous to the world. These plastic bags are sorted, cleaned, melted, and then repurposed.
Another example of reusable items that help, are water bottles. Regular metal water bottles have a significant impact on the earth. Staying away from plastic water bottles that may be thrown in the trash (which could be placed in recycling!) helps to support the Earth. Metal water bottles can be found in nearly any store around you, sourcing a large variety towards people.
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These examples were just some things we as individuals can do to help recycle, but what about if we want to make a bigger impact?
Introducing a law to help recycling become a more regulated thing could be a very crucial part to helping save the world. A law that makes recycling bins outside homes mandatory and even provides some to those who’re less fortunate would help. With this, would include specialized recycling trash trucks to also come around and collect the recycling materials from the bins (also introducing new jobs).
When surveyed if they’re open to laws on recycling being made, 19 out of the 20 students responded with yes. This shows people are already aware of the increasing pollution occurring to the world and if there was a law made they wouldn’t mind it. Making laws towards this act is a very important step to increasing awareness of the earth’s state, requiring people to treat the world with respect.
Another individual/family action we can do to make an impact is making sure we buy a reasonable amount of food. According to rts (A better waste company), Americans waste about 60 million tons of food each year. This was proven to be more than any other country, creating a huge division with us and other countries.
Buying the amount of food that you know you can eat allows for less food waste and less money you have to spend. Next time you buy something from the store, think if you’re actually going to eat all of it or throw it away when it’s halfway done. The earth’s state right now makes it harder for agriculture to expand, preventing certain foods from being made.
Food is one of the main things that cannot be recycled, materials like plastic can be melted and reused but food comes in many different forms. With that being said, food makes up a pretty decent amount of the landfill waste we see getting overflowed today. Food takes too much time in order to be processed and made sure it’s healthy for individuals to eat just to be thrown away.
One thing recycling helps to prevent is the further emissions of smoke into the air. A common decision people used to make was burning items in piles to get rid of it, in these fires smoke is emitted which negatively affects air quality and doesn’t have any benefits. Taking these items and recycling them allowed the air quality to improve and helped to get rid of these items.
Speaking of getting rid of things, a simple way of recycling that you may not have even known is considered recycling is by donating things. Any old toy or clothes in your closet are easily crushed and reused in newer toys or clothing that we have today. This is something that’s moderately normalized, if you don’t need anything anymore, you donate it.
When people were surveyed on whether they think recycling has been helping or not, nearly every single one was positive. 12 claimed yes while others moderately agreed with it, saying it has helped in certain aspects, but overall, there evidently hasn’t been too much of a difference.
An improvement multiple people stated we should do is focusing on certain places to help improve the world. A law should be made for everyone and then extra laws will be added to certain towns that require extra attention.
Pollution effects everywhere, everything, and everyone. From the streets you walk on to the water you drink neither of these things could be clean. Recycling is an attempt to help our world, not destroy it. Pay attention to the things you throw away and make sure you’re being nice to the world with everything you do.
