Nowadays, it’s very common to be told that we all must do our part in saving our planet by recycling. Should we truly go to all of that trouble? Well, consider this statistic: a typical plastic shopping bag takes more or less 1,000 years to entirely decompose in a land fill site. 1000 years is a very long time for only one plastic bag. Estimate how many trash bags you use annually along with those plastic shopping bags. When you multiply that amount by the number of people living in our country, it’s a huge number. Rather than discarding it and waiting for it to break down, we can recycle it so that it can be used once again. Many things are recycled nowadays, for instance old worn tires are shredded down and used as tread for playgrounds and shopping bags made of plastic can be remade into clothing. Almost anything can be recycled.
Fifteen years ago, the town of Lemoore, California instituted a very tough recycling program. Residents who did not observe the rules of recycling were subject to fines. Majority of the people opted to abide by the rules and the town benefited greatly from recycling. Both a new playground and water park were built. Recycling likewise helped to fund basic municipal requisites, such as a police department, a fire station and funding for kids who go pre-school. Apparently, recycling does more than merely reuse discarded items; it can help to create money for other projects.
Although it may appear that the recycling efforts of one person can’t make a difference, multiply that small difference by everyone in the world and the results could be phenomenal. Land fill sites would be a great deal smaller, meaning they are cheaper to operate as well as not leaving a horrible scar on the surrounding area. Remember that money can be raised for poor residential areas from recycling and the environment will benefit as well! Everyone profits.
Even if you don’t care about the environment, you should at least think of others; not just humans but also animals. They are suffering as a result of troubles in the environment such as global warming. You can help to preserve the planet and leave a healthy planet for your children by doing just a little recycling.
Consider how long it takes one thing to break down. You may remember that a plastic bag does not decompose until almost 1000 years later. A disposable diaper will take approximately 400 years, a milk bottle could take 500 years, a glass jar could take a great one million years and Styrofoam (that stuff your takeout foods are in) may possibly never break down! This can all be recycled, so why just throw it away?
Evidently, there are some things we can’t recycle right now, but with the technology becoming even more advanced we might find new ways of recycling and new uses of various materials. In the meanwhile, there is no excuse for not recycling things including plastics, metals and glass. Recycling these materials is fairly convenient in most communities and is not costly, so it’s a great idea to help the earth. We could do a lot of good if each one of us decided to help.
