Text 6f. Recycling
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you know that it takes more than 500,000 trees to produce the
newspapers North Americans read in one Sunday?
Did you know that every man, woman, and child in North America produces almost 4 pounds of garbage a day?
Did you know that 807 per cent of the trash Americans generate is buried in landfills and that only 10per cent is recycled?
What is recycling?
Recycling is the reuse of waste products such as paper, glass, and cans in the manufacturing of new products. Much of what we throw out as garbage or waste actually has value when collected and separated according to a buyer's specifications.
Why recycle?
In many communities, garbage disposal or solid waste management is the third largest expenditure of those communities, ranking only behind schools and roads.
Recycling can save energy
Three environmental problem − global warming, acid rain, and oil spills − are directly related to our extravagant use of energy. Three percent of the United States’ energy use is devoted to produce packaging materials, such as cans and bottles.
By recycling aluminium, it is possible to save 95 per cent of the energy required to make new products from this raw material. If Americans would recycle all of their aluminium cans, they would save an amount of energy equal to 150 Exxon Valdez oil spills every year.
Recycling can save money.
Solid waste management experts estimate that each ton of recycled trash can save taxpayers as much as $ 75 in some communities. In just the last 10−15 years, disposal costs (usually called tipping fees) have risen from $ 15−20 a ton to $ 60−100 a ton.
Many people suggest burning trash. But the cost of a municipal waste incinerator can be more than $ 500,000,000.
Recycling can save landfill space.
By the year 2000, 70 per cent of all landfills will be closed due to stricter regulations or reaching capacity. Efforts to site new landfills are met with increasing opposition from the public who say ‘not-in-my-backyard’ (NIMBY).
Recycling can save natural resources.
For example:
* For every ton of paper that is manufactured from recycled pulp, 17 trees are saved.
* The 35 milliard cans Americans throw away every year could rebuild the entire commercial airline fleet of the United States four times over.
* It takes 42 gallons of high-quality crude oil to produce two and a half quarts of motor oil. It only takes one gallon of waste oil to produce the same amount.
* Recycling protects our health and environment when harmful substances are removed from the waste stream. For example:
- many tires end up in landfills where they become breeding grounds for insects and disease;
- household appliances contain polychlorinated biphenyls;
- producing recycled paper results in only one-quarter of the air pollution produced when manufacturing virgin paper;
- household hazardous wastes pose major threats to soil and water when buried and to the air when burned.
Problems with recycling
Although recycling has more public support than any other method of solid waste management, many government officials hesitate to implement recycling programs. They feel this way because the success in recycling depends heavily on markets for secondary materials as well as public participation levels. Both fluctuate widely.
Because of the huge volumes of waste at curbside, it is easy to landfill or burn the waste. As a result, 80 per cent of municipal waste is landfilled, 10 per cent is burned, and only 10 per cent is recycled.
Recycling options that work
There are many types of recycling programs. For citizens, the most convenient is curbside collection.
To encourage citizens to recycle, some communities even provide special containers. Other communities offer incentives like cash or gifts to cooperating households and offices.
In large cities, apartment house and office building collection systems work well. And mandatory systems result in better participation than voluntary systems.
In other communities, drop-off centres work. These centres range from landfill locations to ‘theme centres’.
What you can do
You can reduce the amount of garbage you generate by buying and using products wisely.
* Buy products in recyclable containers (glass, aluminium, steel, and paper).
* Buy foods and household products in bulk.
* Avoid plastic products that are not recyclable.
* Use cloth towels rather than paper towels.
* Use cloth diapers instead of disposable diapers.
* Share magazine and newspaper subscriptions.
* Reduce the amount of junk mail you receive.
* Reuse products whenever possible.
* Use products that are designed to be used many times.
* Use a coffee mug instead of paper or polystyrene cups.
* Reuse plastic and paper grocery bags or use cloth grocery bags.
* Mend clothes and fix broken appliances.
* Use the blank back sides of paper for notes and copying.
* When shopping, look for the recycling symbol (three arrows forming a circle).
If your community has a recycling program, participate in it. If your community does not, there are a number of things you can do.
* Support laws that establish a deposit on beverage containers.
* Help begin a curbside recycling program.
* Organize a recycling program at your school, office, apartment building, church, or local government offices.
* Recycle your used motor oil and car batteries.
* Make a compost pile to recycle food scraps and yard waste.
* Join organizations that promote recycling.
* Encourage your local newspaper to use recycled newsprint and nontoxic inks.
* Compost yard waste.