The Benefits Of Recycling

Improved Essays
Recycling is something everyone has heard of, but does anyone really know what it means to recycle. By definition, to recycle means to convert waste into reusable material. It is said that recycling can help the environment by using less virgin materials to make new things. It is said the recycling can help reduce the amount of pollution and help preserve the Earth. This can also save the nation thousands and help keep the earth heathy. Recycling is taught to us as early as elementary school. I can remember having a class discussion about pollution and the many different kinds there are. We were taught how pollution is negatively affecting our grate world we live in and that if we recycle our things and reuse what we already have we can help …show more content…
Between 1983 and 1993, there were forty-six major explosions and fires at chemical plants that produced plastics and oil refineries. These events ended with 446 injuries and sadly 89 lives lost. Facilities that produce some of the most substantial public health threats are the ones processing crude petroleum into plastic cups and other good for consumers created by the oil refineries and plastic production facilities. Allen Hershkowitz says “In 1994 alone the 1,834 plastics production facilities operating in the United States emitted more than 111 million pounds of toxic air emissions, 507 million pounds of production related wastes, tens of hundreds of pounds of discharges to surface waters and hundreds of thousands of pounds of other pollutants releases” This shows how often this is happening and puts into perspective how bad this is for the environment. He goes on to say that the plastic industry is second only to the chemical industry in generating toxic releases that damage the ozone layer, which makes a lot of sense given the previous information (Hershkowitz). Some may say that transporting the recyclables contradicts that act of recycling by providing more air pollution from the trucks used when transporting is but according to Hershkowitz “It is wrong to argue that pollution from recycling vehicles in urban areas is greater than pollution from trucks and infrastructure dedicated to garbage collection and disposal. At worst, recycling trucks and infrastructure may produce the same amount of pollution. It is more likely that diverting waste to recycling processing facilities tends to cause less pollution than garbage collection does.” This just shows that recycling vehicles may in fact be better for the environment that garbage collection vehicles. It goes on to say “Any added pollution that might be generated by a recycling program would result from additional trucks

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the words of Julie Craves, of the Coffee and Conservation blog, she states that “recycling is the enemy of the never-ending stream of garbage needed to feed waste to energy facilities” (Scheer and…

    • 1637 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In addition, the building construction, electronics, packaging, toys manufactures and transportation industries and have all benefited greatly from plastic. Plastic accumulation posed an alarming threat to the environment increasing ocean pollution. Wasted plastic…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Biodegradable waste like yard waste can be collected in a large land field and decomposed using modern facilities and used to manufacture compost which can be sold to farmers for planting. This implies that biodegradable waste can be recycled for other uses unlike non-biodegradable waste like plastics. On this note, Bill Nye advocates for the use of more biodegradable products and recycling of non-biodegradable waste so that the environment is saved from pollution. The non-biodegradable wastes liked papers and plastic bottles can be done away with by reducing, reusing and recycling them as the video states. The non-biodegradable should be dumped in a central place like bins in cities where they are collected in huge garbage trucks which transport them to recycling facilities.…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    2017 Tour of Crown Shred Background The Crown Shred tour took place 2 pm on March 16th at the Crown Shred headquarters on 225 6th Avenue East in Regina, Saskatchewan. Corry Shaw was the tour guide, and his tour lasted about 50 minutes, to cover all the waste steams that Crown Shred handle’s. The tour guide showed us the facility, various machines and all the processes they go through for the recyclables. Introduction Crown Shred is dedicated to continuous effort of reducing quantity of recyclable material from waste stream.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Is recycling worth while? Recycling can help prevent global warming and save plants and animals. Recycling can make the world a better place. First off there is global warming otherwise speaking the increase of the worlds temperature it was been a problem for many years and stopping it can help protect the future.…

    • 259 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I certainly do believe recycling amongst other forms of keeping the environment clean (waste, water, and energy) should be continued because of its long term importance. Moreover, I do agree that individuals should not have to worry about keeping the environment clean but I do not agree with the argument Jensen is trying to make on how industry is to blame. Regardless individuals would be to blame since we run industries and have control over emission use and keeping the environment…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The way we neglect our ocean with heavy amounts of pollution can potentially affect our lives in a negative manner. Driving cars and the use of plastic is essential to our daily lives, but we use them without the concern for how they are affecting the habitats on Earth. Some people think that the chance that they are doing harm to the ocean is less important to them than cost or inconvenience of fixing a pollution problem. Through sources from researchers and scientists, they have found evidence of pollution caused by the two essential commodities in our lives, plastic and burning fossil fuels. Environmentalists have found solutions to reduce the plastic waste in our ocean as well as attempting to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere…

    • 1930 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Recycling is the process of making new products out of already used materials. A lot of Americans love the idea and believe that the benefits of recycling out way negatives of recycling. However, other Americans hate the idea of recycling and think that the money and time could be used in other ways. It is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of continuing the recycling process. Americans need to decide if recycling is their way out of the waste management problem in the U.S. because as of 2007 the U.S. is the number one trash producing country in the world.…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Plastic bags make it so much easier to carry our groceries as compared to paper bags. Plastic wrappers do not stick to the food product and can be disposed of without taking up much. Utensils made of plastics make cleaning up easier, because they can just be thrown away. All of these luxuries have come from the invention of using plastics to make disposables, but such disposable items are not disposable in the sense that they are hard to break down. Thus, the “luxuries” actually made me realize the dangers of overusing plastics, leading me to look into the environment and how humans are harming the environment outside of plastic…

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Source reduction and reuse are generally known as waste prevention, is a series of methods that reduce waste at the source. Examples would be purchasing items in bulk to reduce amount of packaging required or redesigning products to be less toxic or even compostable. Source reduction can save natural resources, conserve energy, reduce pollution, reduce toxicity, and save money for business and consumers [2]. Recycling/composting is a series of activities that include the collection of used, reused, or even unused items that would otherwise be considered waste and sent to landfills, and processing them into new raw materials. The processed raw materials would then be remanufactured into new products.…

    • 2096 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why Should You Recycle? Have you ever thought about how much energy and resources are wasted everyday? Lots of people don’t realize how much of an impact they have on the earth. Every day the earth is polluted in many different ways such as air or water pollution. This is slowly taking away the resources and energy needed to make the world a safe place for people to live in.…

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There is one planet that is inhabitable, so as humans we should do everything in our power to make the Earth sustainable. As many think recycling promises a brighter future for our planet, they are quite frankly being deceived. We are more likely to drive ourselves into the ground by funding recycling than to just leave the garbage to, quite literally, rot in its own filth. To some people recycling is just a lost cause, but to many others’ it has wedged its way into becoming a part of his or her lifestyle.…

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Benefits Of Go Green

    • 1822 Words
    • 8 Pages

    In everyday life, we can see green sign everywhere that reminds us of the environment. The color green gives us the motivation to save the Earth. The first step to approach the goal is to recycle. “According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 75 percent of material destined for a landfill could be recycled” (Go Green, 12). This situation shows us that most people do not aware of recyclable objects when they are putting up the trash.…

    • 1822 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pros Of Recycling

    • 1352 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Everyone believes that recycling is good, and they know the benefits of recycling but they still don’t do it. Many people who don’t recycle say they don’t have enough time. Recycling takes just as much time as throwing something in the trash. Most places even have local recycling pick-up; where they pick it up for you. It shouldn’t matter that it takes time to recycle, because you are benefiting yourself, your community, and your environment.…

    • 1352 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When human eat the animals that infected with chemicals from plastic bags, these chemicals can disrupt the normal functioning of hormones in the body. Over time, they will cause cancer, and develop other serious conditions. Additionally, plastic bags are produced from non-renewable resources such as petroleum, ethylene and coal (Environment Protection and Heritage Council, 2002; Wan, 2008). A lot of energy is also used in producing plastic bags, so these reasons contribute to climate change. Plastic bags do not degrade easily, which they just break down into small tiny pieces.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays