A sea turtle, approaching its next meal, believes it to be a jellyfish. Too late it doesn’t realize it has made the fatal mistake of ingesting a plastic bag. The bag will clog up their digestive tract, and can even kill them. The plastic bag, recyclable material, could have ended up being reused, reducing the risk of it harming marine life. Thousands of marine mammals, and more than a million seabirds die each year from ocean pollution and ingestion or entanglement in marine debris. About 75 percent of the waste ending up in landfills or that is dropped on the streets are recyclables.
The problem of waste has become a challenge facing most modern society. In fact our entire planet is affected by this adversity. After something is thrown away, its no longer useful. It eventually ends up in landfill, burned, or somehow contaminating the environment. When recycled, it can be recovered and become material for a new product. According to Green Waste, a privately owned recycling company, a person generates on average generates approximately 4.5 pounds of trash every day, and only 30 percent of the 75 percent of solid recyclable waste is actually ended up recycled.
As Henry David Thoreau once said, “What is the use of a house if we don’t have a decent planet to put it on?” If we put the materials we take from the earth to decent use, then we can conserve on natural resources. The amount of waste we have dumped onto the earth has become the problem. With the expansion of towns and cities, the amount of land available for landfills has decreased. Lands fills, which are foul smelling and repulsive, have a hazardous potential if not properly handled.
The rotting waste forms a chemical mixture that leaks into the ground. Over time, the poisonous mixture can seep into rivers and streams.

Methane, produced by organic waste, is a dangerous gas. By recycling paper, including cardboard, the amount of solid waste being dumped and incinerated can be greatly reduced. According to the American Forest & Paper Association, about 36-37 percent of the raw materials used at US paper mills were comprised of recovered paper. The industry established a 50 percent recovery goal, which was achieved in 2003, and a 55 percent recovery goal by 2012. The rate of recovery reached 56 percent in 2007 and the industry has set a new 60 percent recovery goal by 2012. Significantly more paper has been recovered in America than landfilled, since 1994. The Environmental Protection Agency stated that, “recycling one ton of paper save enough energy to power the average American home for six months and also save 7,000 gallons of water.”

Plastic is another type of waste this is able to be recycled. Most plastics are made of polymers, complex molecules initially derived from oil supplies. Plastic waste, when buried, secretes a poisonous gas. This toxin is often released from buried waste and washes into rivers and streams. Plastic is a non-biodegradable materiel; if a bottle is littered, twenty years later, it will remain intact forever. According to the environmental protection agency, in 2010, 31 million tons of plastic waste was produced. The plastic waste was comprised of, 14 million tons of plastics as containers and packaging, almost 11 million tons as durable goods, such as appliances, and almost 7 million tons as nondurable goods, such as plates and cups. The plastic bottles dumped in sea kill the marine life at the rate of almost 1 million marine creatures every year. Americans use approximately 1 billion shopping bags, solely creating 300,000 tons of landfill waste. Out of the amount plastic waste generated, only 8 percent of it ended up being recycled. Many plastics are now marked with the recycling symbol to inform people of what plastics can and cannot be recycled.

Among several groups able to be recycled, many people don’t consider metal. The scrap value of the 36 billion aluminum cans Americans discarded in one year alone was about $600 million. According to Waste Management, recycling steel and tin cans can save 74% of the energy that is used to produce them. A steel mill that uses recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution and mining wastes by about 70%.

What are some of the benefits of recycling? Besides conserving natural resources such as timber, water, minerals, preventing pollution, saving energy, and reducing green house gas emissions, recycling helps creating new jobs within the recycling and manufacturing industries. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “if more Americans recycled their trash and the nation achieved a 75 percent waste diversion rate, an additional 1.5 million new jobs could be created by 2030.” To manufacture recycled plastic, there are about 10 jobs per 1,000 tons. The Global Anti-Incineration Alliance claimed that in Europe nearly 500,000 new jobs would be created if 70% of a countries waste was recycled, a feat already achieved by the Belgium. If newer jobs were to be created by just recycling slightly over half the waste we produced, the economy and environment would prosper.

The United States generate the most waste in a year on average, producing 760 kilograms per person. So how does recycling work? After people drop off their recyclables, they are collected for recycling. After they are processed, they’re sorted out into the various recycled materials as paper, glass, metals, plastic etc. Since their recycling processes are different, for each material different it undergoes varying procedures.

When interviewing my fellow classmates at Woodland Park High School, I found that only 15% of people recycle at home. Despite this, when asking the question, “do you believe that recycling is beneficial,” almost everyone said that they believe recycling is beneficial. 85% of the people interviewed answered, no to the question, “do you believe that recycling is easily accessible to you?” When asked, “ do you ever drop litter on the streets,” 50% of the students answered, “on occasion,” while the other 50% answered, “never.” I asked one of my peers, “how do you feel about recycling,” to which they answered, “I think that people should definitely recycle more, but they are careless, myself included.”

So what can you do to contribute to reducing the amount of waste, and recycle? When it’s possible plastic bags from stores, or you can take your own environmentally friendly bag. Also, by using plastic containers that can be reused, it eliminates the chance of plastic bags and plastic wraps to end up in landfills. Another way to help eliminate wasting plastic, is buying unwrapped fresh foods. You can buy recycled writing and printer paper. Checking if your school or work recycles, you can contribute by recycling your recyclable waste and also at home. Also, you can find out if your community has existing recycling programs. Although it is not favorable, composting is an excellent way to get rid of foods scraps. Because the microbes in composts can degrade some toxic organic compounds, including petroleum, compost is often used to restore oil-contaminated soils.

The state of our environment today is such that it needs all the help that we can give it. Reusing and recycling are effective, small-scale ways to ensure a safe future for our planet. Next time you’re at the store, consider using an eco-friendly bag, or buying less packaged foods to reduce plastic waste.