Be Green | Teen Ink

Be Green

January 16, 2013
By pgil1189 BRONZE, Bronx, New York
pgil1189 BRONZE, Bronx, New York
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

The average person produces 4.5 pounds of trash every day. That is about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year. The world needs our help. Recycling is one way to solve this problem. Since people are not recycling, the world has many problems such as pollution and global warming. Global warming is when the Earth’s temperature starts rising up. Pollution is severe because it causes many deaths but not only to people, but to marine animals too. Recycling will improve the world. We won’t have so many problems occurring to Earth. Recycling should be required by law.

Recycling reduces air and water pollution. Air pollution is malicious because it could put a bigger hole on the ozone layer. In the 1980s scientists discovered the ozone hole.

Scientists estimated that if people stop using the ozone depleting gases, the ozone layer would recover in about 50 years. If people don’t start recycling the ozone layer, it would take many more years to recover. In addition, water pollution impacts marine animals. People litter in oceans. According to http://act.oceanconservancy.org, litter such as fishing lines, balloons, six-pack holders, lobster and fish traps, and syringes were found on the ocean. Littering could make marine animals extinct! Therefore, if people start recycling we can all save the life of marine animals and stop the ozone layer from increasing its hole. In other words, recycling would stop people from littering and making pollution happen.

Energy is a huge challenge the world is facing. Recycling saves energy and natural resources. A way to save energy is to recycle metal. Metal was found many years ago. Metal can be used again many times and can conserve energy. The article “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle” by Jason Brennan, states that “Recycling a pound of steel saves enough energy to light a 60-watt light bulb for 26 hours”, Also, “ Recycling aluminium cans saves 95% of the energy required to produce aluminium from bauxite”. This evidence shows that aluminum and steel can save a quantity of energy. Steel is a very common useable item. It is America's most recycled material. In addition, President Barack Obama has increased natural gas and domestic oil. Both oil and natural gas causes climate change. For example, the text http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy states that “The Obama Administration has launched the most aggressive and comprehensive reforms to offshore oil and gas regulation and oversight in U.S. history to ensure that our nation can safely and responsibly expand development of offshore energy resources. The Administration is also taking steps to ensure we can safely develop our vast supplies of domestic natural gas.” This shows that President Obama is concerned on the oil and wants to make a big difference for the future. As a result of Obama taking office oil production and natural gas has increased the highest level in 8 years. Thus, recycling can stop people from causing the Earth from having disasters in natural resources and saving energy.

The climate has been changing a lot since the year of 1998. Due to the climate changing, global warming is getting bigger which is very hazardous. By cause of global warming, there has been many severe hurricanes and tornadoes. The website http://www.theglobalwarmingoverview.com says, “According to a study completed by researchers and scientists at MIT there has been a 100% increase in the intensity and duration of storms such as hurricanes and tornadoes since the 1970s. The study found that this is most likely due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions which is then increasing the temperature of the earth. According to the National Climatic Data Centre estimates, $100 billion of damage was caused by hurricanes hitting the U.S. coast in 2005 alone.” This shows that there has been many studies and the results have not been very pleasant because of hurricanes and tornadoes. However, recycling will stop garbage going to the landfill. Landfill is one reason why the global warming is coming faster. Clearly, this evidence shows that global warming is a serious problem that needs recycling in order to help stop it.

A portion of people believe that recycling should not be a law. One opinion is that litter could feed wild animals. They believe that wild animals have nothing to eat and they don't want the wild animals to starve to death. However, this argument is unhold because litter can choke or entangle animals. Some animals are attracted to places with a lot of litter. Litter has numerous germs. Animals find their food and can pick up germs from the litter and then they get diseases that may make people sick. Therefore, if people start recycling, animals won't be sick spreading out diseases all around the world.

In sum, recycling will cause many positive things to Earth. There won't be as many problems as we have today. No pollution, global warming, animals extinct etc. Recycling should required by law. Many countries already made it a law such as Japan, Connecticut, California, Iowa, and Maine. Recycling is very easy because there is many things to recycle like glass, rubbish, bottles, aluminium and more. Recycling makes the world a better place.



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