Photo Credit: KAYLEE OBERFIELD
BY KYRA BACON
In the beginning of the recycling era, only a few followers separated their garbage by placing plastic, glass, metal, paper, etc. into green bins, and the excess trash into garbage cans. Today, despite activist’s efforts, and decades of promoting recycling, things are not much better. Although we may be recycling some, it should be more prominent in our lives. We need to enhance our recycling performance, and eliminate creating more trash than absolutely necessary.
The concept of recycling began thousands of years ago when reusing common items was a necessity. Recycling really took hold around our planet during the World Wars, when a tremendous call for metals to build ships, aircraft and weapons was enacted. As detrimental as it was, economic depression during the 30s also played a significant role in the increase of recycling. Many families could not afford to buy new items and were forced to reuse many variants of household objects. During the eighties and nineties, the idea of ‘becoming green’ became a big trend. But now, recycling has plateaued and is even declining in some instances, and we need to recycle more.
Citizens who try and recycle don’t realize that they can recycle more than they already do. In fact, according to the EPA, 75% of garbage is recyclables. Unfortunately, only 30% of all trash is actually recycled. Even more shocking, the average person accumulates about 4.5 pounds of trash per day, and per year, it can add up to 1.5 tons. The average person will recycle a few glass bottles, a plastic milk jug, maybe a few empty yogurt containers. What many people don’t realize is that regular household objects such as dead batteries, cell phones, computer paper, Christmas trees, and much more can all be recycled or reused. Specific trash items such as these do not come to mind when recycling. People need to remember the importance of recycling all that you can, including these unique objects, to stabilize our trash to recyclables ratio.
A survey once conducted by www.environment-green.com stated that 9 out of 10 people interviewed said that they would recycle more if the process was easier. Realizing this, cities have tried to encourage residents to recycle by distributing recycling bins as well as regular trash cans. Most cities, like Cooper City, have stuck with the usual short green bins, but more successful cities have upgraded their recycling bins to the size of the garbage can. As the bigger recycling bins phenomena slowly sweeps the nation, recycling will hopefully become more popular. Even some schools have chipped in to enhance recycling. Familiar curbside recycling bins are now moving indoors to classrooms. Beside most standard black classroom trash cans, blue bins of similar size reminds students that there is a more efficient and useful place for their used paper and other recyclable school materials. The new school recycling bins adds to the idea of increasing our recycling habits, and, hopefully, will continue to do so.
Yet, despite all efforts, garbage is still made up of 30-40% recyclables that could have been converted into reusable items, but instead will end up sitting in a landfill. Remember: the more that is recycled, the less space our dumps will take up. Glass, paper and plastic aren’t the only materials that can’t be transformed for a better cause. It’s time for our world to make a dent in our dumps.
