The Importance Of Recycling

Reduce, reuse, recycle. We all learned the three "R's" in primary school, but I don't think we realized how important this acronym is. Recycling has a huge positive impact on our planet, and it starts with us. I'm sure we've all had this thought before: "this one piece of plastic won't hurt the planet too badly", but in truth, every piece of plastic that we put into landfills damages our earth a bit more. The plastic we've been midlessly throwing away is adding up. Our landfills are piling up, trash is being burned- there is simply so much waste. It's hard to escape the overwhelming amount of trash sitting here on our earth. This problem looks huge when you think about it, and might even seem unsolveable, but by focusing on what we can do, starting with our lifestyle, we can change this devastating problem.

So what is recycling? Simply, it is making something new out of something old. Converting old products that we no longer use, into something we can use. We have seen more products sold being made out of recycled material over the years, but not nearly enough. Single-use plastic is made and sold every single day, adding on to the tons and tons (literal tons of pounds) heading to our landfills each year. A huge culprit in this plastic pollution are plastic water bottles. According to Habits Of Waste, Americans used around 70 billion plastic water bottles in one given year. No wonder our landfills are filled to the brim. With this much plastic being sold, our planet is facing the damages. It takes an incredible amount of energy to produce these single-use plastic water bottles- about 4 million joules per bottle- and emits a very high amount of CO_2. One ton of plastic being made, creates three tons of CO_2, according to Lavit. The Environment Today Magazine says, "Plastic water bottles are typically made from crude oil. During their production, pollutants such as nickel, benzene, and ethylene oxide are released." These statistics are not promising. It all leads back to the fact that our high consumption of single-use plastic is polluting the world. According to Plastic Oceans, less than 9% of plastic is recycled. That leaves 91% on our streets, in our landfills, in our oceans, killing wildlife, and harming our oceans. Recycling this plastic can help unload burden from landfills, preserve natural resources, save energy, and reduce pollution, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Making deliberate changes in lifestyle, such as buying in bulk, or buying more eco-friendly packaging, making sure to recycle what you can, and buying reusables are all steps you can take to help out the movement. Using less paper, bringing your own bags to the grocery store (or asking for paper bags instead of plastic), grabbing a few LED lightbulbs when a light goes out, and being mindful of your electricity output are all ways we can help. Making an effort to understand what your city can recycle, and knowing where you can recycle things that your city might not take. Personally, my city doesn't recycle glass and certain plastic containers, so my family looked around our town, and we found an independent company-owned recycling bin that took much of the items our city would not recycle. It is important to make sure you don't mic non-recyclables (such as plastic bags) with the items you have recycled, because it can potentially produce "high levels of contaminations in the recycling stream", according to Recycle Across America, which can compromise the material you have also recycled. Every single effort counts. One person can change the world. Every plastic bottle and cardboard box you recycle will move us towards a greener planet. Join the recycling movement, and reduce your carbon footprint.