In 2050, the recycling system can be summarized in one word: Easy. No more sorting between trash and recycling or taking your garbage out to the end of your driveway in the freezing cold. In 2050, all the garbage will be disposed of in your own home.
By 2050, all homes will have an indoor garbage shoot where people can get rid of all trash. Consumers will not have to do any work when throwing away their garbage. This shoot will be like a vacuum powered large tube that will go through your house and underground to connect to an underground community shoot. There will be no need for smelly garbage bins, or having pain of taking a garbage bags outside. Instead of garbage bins, there will be public garbage shoots everywhere. Around every corner, there will be a garbage shoot that anyone can use. Every road, gas station, and business will have garbage shoots that people can use to prevent trash from ending up on the road.
This shoot sends the trash to the nearest recycling center. At this recycling center, the garbage will be sorted. Every item in the future will have a magnetic tracking device. When this object is sorted, the magnet device will notify sorting machines what the item is and will sort the objects accordingly.
Next, the sorted garbage is sanitized and then heads to the recycling center. In the future every piece of garbage will be reused. Lauren Drell from Mashable says, “Greece recycles about 10% of its waste, the UK about 17% and Austria about 60%. Back in 2008, the European parliament passed a measure to achieve a recycling rate of 50% for household waste and 70% for construction waste.” In 2050 100% of the United States’ garbage will be reused. Garbage will be used to build buildings, roads, cars, furniture and much more. The garbage will be sent to businesses to use in their products or buildings. Food garbage is sent to farms and parks to fertilize the ground.
This reusing idea is already happening now in 2013 all around the country. Recology a waste management company says, “Soda cans can be crushed into huge blocks and sold to make more cans; used construction materials can be reworked and end up on new job sites; and last night’s Chinese dinner can be composted and turned into a soil nutrient, which Recology markets to farmers in Napa and Sonoma vineyards and elsewhere.”
This plan not only benefits the environment but also the economy. With United States, according to Discovery.com producing, “1.35 billion pounds” of garbage a year there are endless amount of jobs that can be created to find ways to reuse the garbage. Jobs can be created to sort and ship garbage to different companies to use, also jobs could be created at those companies to take this garbage and use it in their product.
Recycling in 2050 will be very different then it is today. The garbage shoot that will be used all over the country will help keep streets clean, while people will recycling all the garbage and reusing it. This new way of recycling will save energy, money and time across the country. With the help of these garbage shoots, the world will take a step in the right direction to having a waste free environment.