Why I Recycle

Recycling is messy. Recycling is not very convenient. Recycling takes more time than just throwing that yucky old garbage out in the dumpster.

That’s all true. But here’s why I recycle anyway.

1. Recycling reduces wasted landfill space. The landfill is the place where ALL your garbage goes when the garbage truck picks it up and it leaves your house. It’s a place where the co-mingled waste of the planet’s people just sits around taking up space. No one can build a house on that land. No one can put a farm there. No one can turn it into a wildlife preserve. No one can open a Krispy Kreme donut shop there. And that’s silly, because land is valuable and filling land with trash... wastes that excellent space. Why waste valuable land? Recycling reduces wasted space.

2. Recycling saves energy. It takes so much more energy to make a new aluminum can than it does to take the recycled materials of an old can and transform them into a new can. In fact, producing an aluminum can from recycled materials saves 95% of the energy that would have been used to produce a can from virgin/raw materials . Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to keep your TV running for a whole three hours. Recycling a glass container? Same thing... recycling one glass container saves enough energy to light a 100 watt light bulb for 4 hours. Cool huh? Recycling saves energy.

3. Recycling reduces pollution.
Making stuff creates pollution. We’ve got to make and use stuff. And and I’m really okay with that. So the smart thing to do is choose a way to create stuff while making less pollution. Recycling does this really well. Paper made from recycled paper makes 95% less air pollution. And glass that is made of recycled materials creates 50% less water pollution. That sounds like the way to go to me.

4. Recycling conserves natural resources. A resource is anything that can be used. The earth is round. That means you can start at one side and as long as you “keep moving in a straight line, you’ll get back to the same place you started. The earth is not infinite. It doesn’t keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny. Neither do our natural resources. We have plenty of natural resources on this planet, but ONLY if we use them wisely. Using something only once is very NOT wise. In fact it’s a really poor use of natural resources. Using a resource over and over and over is the best use. That’s exactly what recycling works. It’s using a resource over and over again. Besides, nature is already recycling our air. Nature is already recycling our water. Nature is already recycling all organic stuff like; plants, trees, animals, humans. It’s all turned back into earth that other living things use for food. Recycling is simply people doing what nature is already doing. Did you know the we use over 65 BILLION aluminum soda cans every year? And every one of them could be recycled. There is no limit to the number of times an aluminum can can be melted down and used over again. Did you know that, every year enough paper is thrown away (not recycled) to build a wall from New York City to Los Angeles, California? Or did you know that, one ton of recycled steel (the kind of container your dog’s food comes in) saves 2,500 pounds of the raw ore, 1000 pounds of coal, and 40 pounds of limestone? Recycling sounds like a great way to conserve resources to me.

Recycling IS messy. Recycling IS NOT very convenient. Recycling DOES take more time than just pitching the yucky old garbage out. But, it reduces wasted landfill space. It saves energy. It reduces pollution. And it conserves natural resources.

So that’s why I recycle. I hope you will too.