Science and technology

Wednesday, 13 November, 2013 - 23:51

Why should we recycle?

by LaurenS

Many of us still don't think that we need to recycle or can't be bothered. Sometimes choosing the correct bin to put our rubbish in and emptying them feels like too much effort. Realistically, separating our rubbish is not that difficult and only takes a few minutes of our time. In some countries people receive money for items that they recycle, mainly plastic and glass bottles. Encouraging recycling through enabling people to earn money has raised awareness of the importance of recycling and people doing this often want to recycle other items.

What we can recycle varies in different places. In Reading, my hometown in the UK, I can recycle paper, cardboard, plastic and glass bottles, cans and batteries. When I moved to university in Chester I discovered that there I could also recycle clothes, shoes, electrical items, ink cartridges, mobile phones, plastic pots and foil. I also had a compost bin for food waste such as meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, tea bags and food waste and another bin for garden waste. I am now currently living in Melilla, an area of Spanish territory on the north coast of Africa. Here I can only recycle paper, cardboard and glass. It it difficult for me to put something into the general waste when I know I can recycle it somewhere else.

Sometimes it is hard to understand why recycling helps the earth. The main principal is that recycling saves the energy that would be otherwise required to produce waste products again. Production along with other polluting factors such as transport is increasing the levels of harmful gases in the atmosphere and this is causing the global temperature to rise. As a result, weather patterns have changed in some areas, which have had devastating effects such as more natural disasters and problems in farming and agriculture. 

The saddest part is that most affected areas are the underdeveloped countries in the global south who don't have enough money or resources to waste like we do and therefore they don't largely contribute to global warming. Whilst they struggle with natural disasters and changing weathers affecting their food production, people like us living in developed countries that are mostly located in the global north experience few problems. Furthermore, many people believe that a change in global temperature is natural and has occurred throughout history. That is correct, but it is scientifically proven that global warming as a consequence of human activity does contribute to climate change. The current global temperature is rising very quickly and it won't be long before we won't be able to live in certain parts of the world due to extreme weather.

Choosing not to recycle increases landfill and many of the items that are put in landfills take hundreds of years to decompose. Many items, such as glass, never decompose and will stay there forever. The world is already overpopulated and eventually we may run out of space. Nobody wants to end up living next to a landfill. Packaging is also included in the price of the items we buy and putting them in landfill is not only wasting resources, but money as well. Plastic bags are a perfect example. Why do we get a plastic bag every time we go to the shop? In some places people have to pay for plastic bags, therefore we can save both money and resources through taking a reusable bag to the shops. It is also easier, as plastic bags don't last very long and aren't particularly easy to carry.

Additionally, continuing to produce items made from wood, card and paper is causing deforestation, which not only destroys the habitat of animals and makes them endangered, but also increases carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as trees and plants are vital for producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Recycling paper and card can help prevent this.

There are also negative aspects of recycling, for example melting old plastic down to make new items can use a lot of energy. For this reason some cities choose to limit what they can recycle and send general waste to be burnt. On the one hand this is a method of producing energy but on the other hand it causes further pollution. Despite this, as long as we continue to produce more waste, environmental degradation will cause more problems and we will have less resources, so we need a solution.

Discussion

What can you recycle where you live? Do you think recycling is important? 

Submitted by VB on Thu, 05/26/2022 - 15:40

In my opinion, recycling is very important and is an exellent way to take care of our planet. We can recycle different materials such as paper, cardboard, glass, plastic, cloth, batteries, etc. Fortunately, the new generations are aware of the importance of recycling and year after year its place as a priority activity is growing up. Developed countries has been the first ones to pay attention to environmental problems and as a consequence they have policies to promote recycling. On the other hand, underdeveloped and developing countries don´t have a strong policy on this issue. I think that education is the best way to promote and increase recycling activities, not only through government policies but also through advertising campaings. Any incentive to promote recycling is a step forward in order to take care of our planet, improve our quality of life and protect future generations.

Submitted by LilyaSe on Sat, 12/19/2020 - 12:55

I believe recycling things is very important in our life. I believe we must recycle because we are harming our Earth with foods that we do not recycle. People who litter and pollute the environment do not understand how much they harm nature. The place where I live can recycle bottles, paper and plastic. We must all be involved in solving this problem

Submitted by dmitry144 on Thu, 12/17/2020 - 19:40

In my city,i can recycle plastic,glass,paper,tires.Also,there are some recycling collection point.I think that recycling is important because,if we will litter a lot ,our kids would live among piles of garbage.And their health will be bad. Dmitry T.

Submitted by anna0_0 on Thu, 12/17/2020 - 16:06

In Tula, you can recycle glass, waste paper, PET plastic and products made of aluminum.I think recycling is important to us.Because when recycling, a person can reuse things.For example, by recycling paper, you can reduce the amount of deforestation.It will also be possible to reduce the use of plastic items by making clothes or reusing them.And in general,a person can pollute the entire planet over time without recycling. And this will affect people's health and living conditions.(Anna)

Submitted by Ruslik7 on Thu, 12/17/2020 - 14:15

In the city where I live, we can recycle paper, garbage, plastic. Recycling things is one of the most important ways to help the environment. If we want to leave this planet for our future generations. It is good for the environment since we are making new products from the old products which are of no use to us. (Ruslan)

Submitted by BathroomDuck on Wed, 12/16/2020 - 17:50

I can recycle paper (or cardboard), plastic and glass, but difficultly find place, where garbage is filtering to throw away sorted trash. I think recycling is importmant, but only if it has countrywide, otherwise thats help only small territories and dont stop global catastrophe.

Submitted by Fagh23 on Sat, 08/01/2020 - 11:54

We can recycle paper and cardboard in our city. I'm sure that recycling is very important because it uses less energy and prevents wastage of resources .For example :reusing paper reduces deforestation so recycling helps the environment and everything helps the environment is important for us .Unfortunately culture of recycling isn't important in our public yet and it's so bad , but we must promote this culture and encourage adults also kids to recycle things.I hope one day everyone tries to have a good nature and environment .

Submitted by Jk0077 on Tue, 07/28/2020 - 16:25

I believe if we want to have a good and healthy life we must protect environmet. Recycling things is one of the most important ways to help the environment, because if we recycle thigs less energy will be wasted and there won't be much waste left. Waste is also harming the planet and we're running out of places to put it!But with all of that some people are frightened by the size of the problem, and prefer not to think about it. Others find "the environment" a boring topic and some of us are simply lazy. Unfortunately, we do not think that there will be other people that are going to live on the earth after us, and it is our duty to protect the earth like the people before us!

Submitted by 01284363 on Fri, 03/13/2020 - 21:16

In my opinion, recycling is very important since it is a way to keep our primary sources. It is quite simple to recycle so it is a matter of interest for people to start doing it.

Submitted by A01285698 on Wed, 03/11/2020 - 20:48

I think that recycling is very good, I wish that more people prioritize this problem.

Submitted by Yosai on Mon, 03/09/2020 - 05:45

I believe that the recycling culture is very important for everyone because if we do not have that culture in the next few decades and centuries we will have consequences for our family and environment

Submitted by MarisolPA on Thu, 03/05/2020 - 21:03

I think this topic its really important not only for adults, also for the little kids because as a parent you have to teach your child to take care of the environment. We should pay more attention in this subject because us humans are just damaging the world by putting the trash in the street, in the ocean, etc. So we have to do the right thing and start to recycle more often.

Submitted by A01177752Xavi on Thu, 03/05/2020 - 19:43

Mostly all the plastic we use for drinking and for packages, and paper at school. As for why is it important is because the climate change caused by how all the trash we leave out sends out toxic fumes and cases to modify how our nature works.

Submitted by A00517251 on Thu, 03/05/2020 - 00:42

We must all be involved in this problem of recycling so that our planet is in a good state and that we make the planet and a good place without garbage everywhere as in the streets, our duty is that there is no garbage anywhere.

Submitted by A01285693 on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 21:12

Humans don't take seriously this problem and don't think is causing harm to our world and also affecting us in many ways.

Submitted by mmsaenz on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 21:06

In the community where i lived we can recycling a lot of plastic bottle, so we can do a lot of campaigns for this problem. Recycling is very important to save the planet, because all this things do things bad in the earth. With the emissions in the ozone cape, the sun light can burn our skin and maybe we can die soon.
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Submitted by Onetwotree on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 21:02

we can recycle the bottles of water and others in our country and also we can collect and recycle the soda cans. The most important thing is we should do separate collection when house throw away the trash. It is so much helpful to the earth. And I think recycling is really important because recycling reduces the need for refining and processing raw materials all of which create substantial air and water pollution. As recycling saves energy it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to tackle climate change.

Submitted by a01284550gaby on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 21:01

After reading this Ive realized how important is to recycle at least the plastic or something but we have to start by doing something if we don't want to finish with our world and If we start by something small we can do something big, besides we can encourage our friends to do the same and at the end of this we will all do the same to tryna save our world.

Submitted by estherl0217 on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 21:00

I think we should recycle because we are damaging our Earth with the products we aren’t recycling. I think our government should find ways to encourage the people to recycle so we help our planet Earth. It would be nice to have many ways to know how to reuse things we use in our daily lives, recycle the plastic, aluminum products. Reduse products that take to much to decompose and not help our environment

Submitted by A01285765 on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 20:57

This article is really important, we need to start recycling more to toke care of the environment, one way of doing this is by creating new thing from other things, it is a way to give things a second usage.

Submitted by A01570851 on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 20:57

I really think recycling is important and one reason we should recycle is to help not only our environment, but our own health as well. Recycling decreases deforestation, as many items are made of wood, many other items, if not recycled, will take up a lot of space in landfills and eventually we will run out of space on this earth. Every item we throw away instead of recycling is another factor that contributes risk into earth's well being.

Submitted by HelloThere15345 on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 20:54

I think that recycling is very good, I wish that more people prioritize this problem.
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