The green movement has become so popular and all encompassing that it seems to have just become a normal part of life. It is hard to remember a time when one program or another was not urging you to please recycle; because of how routine these pleas have become, it seems like a risk has been run that the casual observer may have become desensitized to the message behind them. Here are the three main points behind the recycling movement and why they should matter to you:
1. We Generate a Lot of Trash
The sheer amount of trash that Americans alone generate is really staggering. Each and every hour, Americans throw away about twenty five million plastic bottles. That’s six hundred million bottles each day — and that’s just America. Every year, enough soda bottles and cans are thrown away that, if someone took it upon themselves to gather every single one and stack them on top of each other, they would be able to build a bridge to the moon and back twenty times over. These bottles represent a resource that could be used, but oftentimes is not, and there are still more types of waste not accounted for by bottles. In fact…
2. We Really Don’t Recycle Very Much
More often than you would think, the waste Americans generate is recyclable. More than seventy five percent of the materials picked up by waste companies has the potential to be recycled into something else. That leaves just over a fifth that is what one would traditionally think of as trash. Less than a third of that waste is actually recycled. More than two thirds of the waste that we could recycle finds its way to landfills and oceans via waste disposal companies and waste management services. Whether one is avoiding recycling e waste or recycling bottles, that is a gross waste, and recycling services should be used more, even for recycling e waste.
3. Recycling Is Not Just For the Environment
Obviously the waste being generated is detrimental to the environment. Recycling e waste, or bottles, or some other things would do wonders for saving the world. There is a more pragmatic reason to recycle, however. The act of recycling helps conserve resources which, in theory at least, should make things cheaper. After all, if you can essentially use the same plastic twice, you have gotten twice the value out of it. Waste can even be converted into electricity; one can recycled could power a TV for a few hours! What do you think is the most important reason to recycle? Find out more about this topic here.
